The Archdemon's Gift
by dragonmactir
Summary: Pulled across planes by the rift created in the wake of the archdemon's death, Loghain Mac Tir finds himself in a strange new world.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Dragon Age_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T

**Spoilers: **Takes place immediately after the events of _Dragon Age: Origins._

**A/N:** I can't say I really know where this is going. I've had the idea of the transplant to a different realm for a long, long time, but this is the first time I've tried it in a non-crossover format. What this means from a practical standpoint is that I have no set structure for the story. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing, I rarely work with structure and tend to do better without it (_The Return _had no structure whatsoever). But I don't have the best feeling about this attempt, as I haven't had the best feeling about anything I've tried to write since my father died. I feel as if I've got to try anyway, so you might say this is my attempt to get back on my feet, and I'm posting it despite my misgivings because this will make me feel more compelled to continue with it even if I want to quit. I'm still struggling to get back into _In a Nearly Perfect World _and _Strange Bedfellows_.

* * *

**Chapter One: Evil Knows My Name**

The first thing he became aware of was pain. Excruciating pain, spread throughout his entire body. The slightest movement caused broken bones to grind together, and sent pain signals through frayed nerve endings in pulverized tissues. As proof of life, it couldn't have been better. And that was a problem.

Because he wasn't supposed to be alive.

The second thing he became aware of was a sense of panic. If he was alive, then that meant the Archdemon must be, too. And if the Archdemon yet lived, then the Blight was not over. Tension flooded his muscles and brought more pain, mind-altering, blinding pain that overrode emotion temporarily. There was clearly no way he was going to move, much less make it to his feet. Whatever was happening with the army and the Blight, it was going to have to happen without him. He had failed. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. That and the blood.

Through the pain and the panic he slowly became aware of other things. He was cold, and he was wet. Surely he hadn't fallen in the river. It was conceivable, barely, for the Drakon flowed but a few streets below the towers of the fort. But if he'd been blown that distance and fallen that far, how could he possibly have survived? It made no sense. And if he was still in the city, why didn't he hear the battle? Why didn't he smell the fire and the rank, fetid stench of the darkspawn? To his ears came only the sound of gently flowing water and the loud whisper of birch leaves. In his nose was only the smell of moist, brown earth and green growing things. He could not be in the city. Where then was he, and how had he gotten here?

It hurt even to breathe. He slowly opened one pale blue eye; the other one didn't seem to want to respond. His vision was cloudy. He saw grass, very close by his face, and a small beetle crawling up one blade, too tiny even to bend it. He blinked and the world came into better focus. He saw beams of light that broke through the leaves of overhead trees like the fingers of the Maker. He saw at the furthest edge of his vision a placid stream bubbling over smooth, polished stones. Wherever he was, it was a beautiful place to die. He closed his eye again.

Perhaps he faded out of consciousness for a time. The next thing he knew, he felt hands on his shoulders and back. He was quite familiar with the feel of magical healing, power that passed from the conduit of the mage's hands and into the body. This was nothing like that. Instead it felt almost as though these hands reached into him and took hold of each broken bone and damaged organ, remolded it, and moved on to the next. The power in these hands didn't come from elsewhere, like all magic he was familiar with. This power seemed part and partial of the hands themselves, an ancient, eldritch power. It left him weak, but whole. Exhausted, he lost consciousness again.

He woke again when his body was jostled. Someone rolled him over, with strong hands under his arms and on his legs.

"He's been beaten badly. The nymph must have healed him. Funny she would do that for a human. Let's take him back to the settlement. He'll die if we leave him here."

"Is that such a bad thing? He's human," someone else said.

"Hush. Humans aren't all bad. If the nymph took the time to heal him then he must be worth saving."

"How do you know she did? Maybe he's just ugly. And naked."

"Stop talking back and do what you're told."

He opened his eyes and saw several elves gathered around him. They loaded him up on some sort of travois without further speech, and he didn't even think of speaking to them. He was simply too tired. He closed his eyes again, and felt someone drape a cloak over his body. He appreciated that. He wondered what had happened to his armor. He realized he'd been naked since the first time he wakened. Could the blast have blown him right out of his armor and the clothes he wore beneath it? That made about as much sense as anything else in this situation.

He felt his body bump and jostle over the ground. He kept his eyes closed and let the world pass by beneath and around him unheeded.

"Are you sure he's still alive?" someone said.

"He's alive. He just needs someplace safe to recuperate. He was near death."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"The wood spoke to you, didn't it? The wood spoke to you of this human. That's how we found him. It was no accident you turned us from the hunting trail to the nymph's glade."

"Yes."

"The wood told the nymph to heal him, then told you where to find him. Is he god-touched?"

"Perhaps."

"Not all the gods are benevolent, you know."

"Enough. Just walk."

The pace of the travois was slow, probably pulled by hand rather than by an animal. They'd probably brought it along to carry the kill, if they were a group of hunters, but he would have expected them to have a halla to pull it. Perhaps the white deer were too sensitive to bring along on a hunt. He thought about it in short bursts, as he lapsed in and out of sleep throughout the journey. Every bump seemed to jerk him awake. Though he was no longer in excruciating pain, every muscle was tender, his body one giant bruise. He thought about what he considered a curious lack of halla more than he thought about that curious conversation he'd overheard, where they spoke of nymphs and gods. The Dalish had their own gods, he knew that, but it made no sense that one of them would think he'd been somehow touched by one of them, and nymphs were creatures from fairy stories. But then again, when he was a child, dragons were extinct and the darkspawn had been permanently defeated. The world had ways of surprising you.

It was a long time before they finally stopped, and the moment they stopped he lapsed into a deep sleep. He was wakened once, when they moved him from the travois to a straw pallet someplace inside, but as soon as he was settled he fell asleep again and did not wake for hours. It was almost as though he slept to make up for all the sleep he had missed over the past year.

He awakened slowly, to the gradual realization that he needed to urinate. Without thinking, he tried to get up. There was no strength in his body and he barely managed to lift himself a fraction of an inch off the pallet. He groaned involuntarily, and someone responded.

"Don't try to move. You lost a lot of blood."

He opened his eyes, and saw an elven face, pale-skinned and fair-haired. He couldn't tell straight away whether it was male or female, but the voice was female. His sallow cheeks flushed red.

"I need to make water," he said.

The elf handed him a small wooden bucket. "I trust you can manage on your own?"

"I certainly hope so." He pulled the blanket that covered him partway off and put the bucket underneath the part that still covered him. He cautiously urinated into the tipped container and righted it before he pulled it back out from under. His cheeks blushed redder as he handed the partly filled pail to the elf.

"Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. I take care of a lot of sick and injured people, although I have to say you're the first human. What happened to you? You took quite a beating, it seems."

"I don't really know what happened. I was supposed to die," he said.

"You nearly succeeded. This wasn't a suicide, was it? I don't want to come in here and find you've finished the job with a shirt lace or something."

"No, it wasn't suicide." He struggled to sit up, and the elf helped him prop himself against a couple of buckwheat pillows. Up close, he could tell for certain that it was a female. "I knew what I did would mean my death, but it had to be done."

"What is it you did? Tell me the story," the woman said.

"Sorry, Gray Warden secret."

"What's a Gray Warden?" she asked.

"You don't know? I thought the Dalish had a relatively good relationship with them."

"What's a Dalish?"

"You're not…Dalish?" he said.

"I'm a sylvan elf. What's a Dalish?"

"It's…an elf…who lives in the woods."

She laughed. "All elves live in the woods."

He looked around himself. He'd thought he must be in an aravel, but it did look more like the interior of a house than a wagon. "You don't know about the Dalish? Is this…am I not in Ferelden?"

"I've never heard of Ferelden. Is that where you're from? This is the wood of Aulden, in the land the humans call Lindroh, although we're many miles from any human settlement. Which begs the question, how did you get all the way out here?"

"I don't know. I've never heard of a place called Lindroh, or the wood of Aulden. No place I know in all of Thedas. How did I get here? I have no clue. It must have something to do with the Archdemon. It sent me here, wherever this is. Somehow. It makes no sense, but nothing does right now."

"Archdemon? Not a god? Because somebody told me you might be god-touched," she said.

"I don't know what that means, but the Archdemon was a god, or at least it was worshiped as such a long time ago," he said. "Do you know aught about darkspawn here?"

"No. What are darkspawn?"

"An evil scourge. Count yourself fortunate if you don't encounter them here. Tell me, am I still in Thedas at all?"

She shook her head. "Afraid not, or at least I've never heard of any people that calls this place Thedas. I can't believe you traveled far in your condition, so maybe you crossed planes? The Elder might know what plane you're from, he's learned about other worlds."

"Planes? Like the Fade? This couldn't be a Fade dream, could it? Of course, that would make you a demon, I suppose, and a demon wouldn't tell me the truth."

"There are lots of different planes. You have no reason to trust me, but I'm not a demon. Just an elf."

"I don't really think you are a demon. I've never been in this much pain in a dream."

"Yes, you're going to be in pain for awhile. You probably won't have to be in bed for very long, though. The nymph did a good job of healing you. Nothing left but lots of bruises and blood loss."

He looked at her with one eyebrow cocked. "An actual nymph, eh? Spirit of the forest or what have you. Where I come from, they're just fairy stories."

"Well, they're real here. They don't usually give their time to humans, because your people aren't one with the wild places of the world, but she healed you. Maybe she felt sorry for you, all beaten up, or maybe the wood told her something about you."

"The wood?"

"The wood speaks, to those with ears to hear it. Not many people can hear the voice of the wood. The nymph can, of course - all the fey can hear. They're part of the wood to begin with. But a few of the elves of our clan can hear, and there are others in other clans. The wood told one of our hunters where to find you. It isn't often the wood takes an interest in mortal affairs. You must be special. That's why we thought you were god-touched. If one of the gods put you here, for good or for ill, then the wood would look out for you."

"Why would it look out for me if I'm here for ill?" he asked.

"The wood would know you're god-touched, not for what purpose the god put you here. Being god-touched is a very special condition. You could be here to work great good…or great evil."

He blinked, once. "I am not evil," he said. "But evil knows my name."

"I think most of us can say that. What is your name? I am Sayela."

"My name is Loghain."

"Well, Loghain, I've got some soup on the fire. Are you hungry?"

"Ha. I'm starving. I haven't eaten in several days. I was too keyed up, and there wasn't much time."

"Well I'll go get you some. I'll be right back."

She left the room. Loghain looked around himself and took in his surroundings completely for the first time. The walls, floors, and ceiling were wooden, which had helped with the impression that he was in an aravel, but on further inspection he saw that part of one wall was in fact the trunk of a very large tree. There was some simple furniture, a twig-back rocker and a small wooden table with a metal candlestick on it. Sayela left with the piss bucket and returned with a wooden bowl of something steaming hot.

"Here you go. It's potato and cheese, I hope that's all right," she said.

"It's just fine. Smells delicious. Do you grow the potatoes yourselves?"

"Yes. We don't have much space for agriculture, but we make good use of what little we've got."

She handed him the bowl, and he spooned up his first mouthful. The soup was rich with herbs and tasted heavenly. The first bite awakened his hunger and gave him a visceral reminder of the privation of the past few days. Food had been available, but he hadn't had the stomach for it. Apart from everything else, the heavy stench of darkspawn did nothing for the appetite. There was no sense of them here, not even the slightest tingle in his blood. He wasn't even entirely certain he was still tainted. Perhaps it was simply that he was anemic, but there wasn't the faintest flutter of taint in his veins. Maybe that was because there were no darkspawn in this place, but he doubted that the taint ever stopped feeling strange. It was something foreign inside, and the body fought it continuously.

He forced the thought of darkspawn from his mind long enough to enjoy his soup. There was too much to think about to dwell on it now. Where he was, how he was going to get home, what had happened with the Archdemon and the state of Ferelden, all of these were questions he could not answer for the moment. When he was stronger, when he could sit up on his own without wanting to faint, that would be the time to start worrying about the big questions. Right now, smaller questions were all he could deal with.

"I hate to impose upon you further, but I have to ask," he said. "Is there any chance you might have something I could wear?"

"The crafters are fixing you up some clothes," Sayela said. "There's nothing in the village that would fit someone your size, so they're patching things together from old pieces and fresh hides. It will look a bit piecemeal, I expect, but its better than nudity, right?"

"Much better, thank you."

"I don't suppose you can explain why you were naked when they found you?" she asked.

"I can't. The last thing I remember before I woke up here, I was fully dressed and armored."

"Well, that supports the idea that you crossed planes. People who get knocked from one plane to another quickly and against their will don't come across with everything that's in their possession at the time. The Elder might know why that is, but I don't," Sayela said. "Would you like another bowl of soup?"

"Yes, please."

She took the bowl and disappeared. Loghain lay his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes until she returned with another steaming bowl of potato soup. He ate it, and then she helped him lay back so that he could get some more sleep.

"I'll leave you alone now," she said. "Get some sleep, and when you wake up there should be some clothes for you. The herbalist will have some medicines ready for you by then as well. We'll have you on your feet soon."

"Thank you," he said.

He closed his eyes but didn't sleep. The questions circled round in his head and kept him from it. He hoped it would start to make sense when he found someone knowledgeable to explain it to him. Right now it all seemed like a particularly crazy dream. Crossing planes, nymphs, gods…it was too much to contemplate. He forced himself to think of other things, since there was nothing he could do yet about what he didn't know. He thought about Anora, and wondered if she still had a nation to rule. He wondered if they'd found his armor and if they wondered what had happened to the rest of him. He thought about the battle, and how strange it was to obey while others commanded. He wondered if he'd ever get back. He wondered if he really wanted to go back. This was a place where no one knew who he was, or what he'd done. There was appeal in being anonymous.

Eventually Sayela returned, a ceramic bottle in her hand. "You awake? I've got some medicine for you, it will help you with the anemia. The herbalist said you should drink all of it."

"Thank you. We have blood-replenishing potions where I come from. I've drunk down many of them in my time, but I've never been able to get used to the taste."

"Coppery, like blood," Sayela said.

"Yes. Curious that it should be the same. I wonder if it comes from the same ingredients? I've never known what they're made from, so I doubt I would recognize it if you told me."

"My philosophy on that sort of thing is that I'm generally better off not knowing."

"I feel the same way."

She helped him to sit up and then handed him the bottle. He took it and tipped it at her in salute. "Cheers," he said, and drank it down in a gulp with a grimace. "I don't know what the worst part is, the taste or the texture. It's almost frothy."

"Have you ever actually looked at it?" Sayela asked.

"No. I really don't want to, either. I have a funny sort of feeling that it might be red."

"I think it is. The herbalist always has red on his apron after he makes a batch."

"Unpleasant to think about."

Sayela cocked her head to one side in a listening gesture. "I think I just heard a knock at the door. That's probably your new clothes."

She left the room, and returned in a few moments with garments in hand. "Here you go. They did the best job they could on them. They're a bit piebald but they're well-constructed. They'll serve you until you find your way to human lands where the clothing will fit you. Are you ready to try them on?"

"If I have the strength to stand."

"I'll help you."

"Thank you, but I would prefer to do it on my own."

"I've seen what you look like under that sheet, you know," Sayela said.

"I know. But that was when I was too weak to fight about it."

"Very well, if you think you can manage it. I'll just be in the other room." She put the clothes down on the floor by the pallet and disappeared out the door. Loghain levered himself up off the pallet and shakily pulled himself into a standing position. He leaned heavily on the small end table while he pulled the patchwork trousers up over his legs. They'd gone to some effort to make the castoff pieces presentable, with decorative stitching and the different-colored patches complimenting each other as best as possible. The shirt was the same, with a high collar and a deep laced neck. The trousers fit a bit tightly but it was bearable. He lowered himself into the twig-back rocker and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm done," he called, and Sayela came back into the room. She eyed him critically.

"They didn't do a bad job, considering what they had to work with and the time it took them. Of course elven craftsmen are the best, that's undebatable. How are you feeling? I bet you're glad just to be sitting in a chair."

"I am. I don't feel too badly. I've always been a quick healer. I just need to catch my breath, and then I can get out of your hair. Perhaps there's something I can do for you in thanks for your help."

Sayela laughed. "Tired of my conversation already? I don't think you're quite ready to get up and go. Give it another day of rest and medicine before you fly out of here."

"I can't stand to lie around vegetating."

"I know. You're a man of action, it's easy enough to tell. Tell you what, how would you like to get out of this room and go sit on the front porch? The fresh air would be good for you."

"I would love to, thank you."

He stood up, with only some slight difficulty, and she led him through the rest of the small house to the front door. "I've got some cleaning to do," she said. "There are chairs out there for you."

He nodded, and opened the door. Instead of a low wooden deck a few inches off the ground he found himself looking out at the forest from halfway up the trunk of a gigantic tree, with a porch that turned into a ramp leading down to the ground. There were other houses in sight that hung on to the trunks of other trees, all well-constructed and beautifully ornamented with intricate carving, all perfectly blended into the surrounding forest. He walked to the edge of the railing and looked down into the clearing, a good seventy feet below. He could see the cultivated land, in the middle of the clearing where the sun reached it, and he saw that it contained a preponderance of wheat. It was unlike any settlement he'd ever seen before, but he had to confess he liked it. It looked as old as the forest itself, as though it had grown organically from the wood, and it looked like a place that war had never touched, whether true or not. He lowered himself into one of the chairs on the porch and watched time stand still. It was peaceful, but it didn't take long before he started to feel a sort of itch in his feet. He wasn't cut out for a peaceful life.

Evidently he wasn't the only one. With a whoop, someone swung in on a rope, cleared the railing, and touched down a few feet away from where he sat. An elf, of course, far more muscular than Sayela but no less female, with pale skin, yellow hair, and large, oddly wolfish eyes. She turned these on Loghain and he saw some ferocity there.

"When are you leaving?" she asked without any preamble.

"Hello to you, too," Loghain said. "In answer to your question, soon. My keeper says I need more rest and more medicine."

"I'm going with you when you leave," the woman said.

"You are, are you? And why is that?" he asked.

"You'll need me to show you the way to the human settlement. And I need to get out of here."

"Is the forest too small for you?" he asked.

"No. I just need to go someplace where nobody knows me."

Loghain stood up and took her measure against his own height. "You're tall for an elf, aren't you?" he said.

She crossed her hands over her chest. "Yeah, and you're thick for a stone, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am," he said. "What's your name?"

"Elilia."

"I'm Loghain."

"I don't care," she said.

"Friendly, aren't you?"

"I'm not out to make friends."

"Fortunate. Neither am I."

"Fine. I'll see you later, then," she said, climbed over the rail, and swung herself away on her rope. Loghain watched her go, shook his head, and sat back down.

About a half an hour later, Sayela came outside and sat down in the chair next to him.

"Enjoying it?" she asked.

"The fresh air is nice, but I have to admit I'm tired of sitting around," he said.

"It won't be much longer. The herbalist will have another dose of medicine for you in a few hours, and then some sleep to give it a chance to work. I'd expect you'll be on your way this time tomorrow."

"I've never made a very good patient."

"You'll survive."

"I met one of the townsfolk. Elilia."

"Oh really? Did she tell you the plan?"

"She told me in rather an abrupt manner that she's going with me when I leave."

"She can be a bit…gruff. She's a good person, though."

"Is she entirely elven? She's rather tall."

Sayela hemmed a bit. "Well, it isn't really my place to say anything, but she's mostly elf."

"Well, it's none of my business of course. Just idle curiosity."

Sayela slapped her thighs and started up out of her chair. "Want me to make you a sandwich? You can eat it out here."

"Thank you, I am a bit hungry."

She disappeared into the house and returned in a few minutes with a wooden plate and a particularly fine wooden goblet. "Don't get too excited, it's just cranberry juice," she said. "You haven't had anything to drink in awhile so you don't need alcohol to dehydrate you."

"Cranberry juice? Where's the bog?" he asked.

"Miles away. We trade for the berries with the group of rock gnomes that works it."

"Rock gnomes, eh? I'm afraid to ask."

"You're not familiar with gnomes? They're a lot like elves, only a lot smaller. They're good people, most of them."

"They're not made of rock?" he said.

"No, they're not. I think the name comes from the fact that they dig their homes out of the rock underground."

She handed him the plate and goblet. He took a sip of the tart juice and set the goblet aside on the flat arm of the chair. He turned his attention to the sandwich, a term he'd never heard before. He considered it a clever innovation, a variation on the bread trenchers he was familiar with. The extra piece of bread on top of the pile of food made it easier and cleaner to eat with the hands. Inside the sandwich he discovered white wild turkey meat with herb stuffing and cranberries. He picked it up and took a bite.

"Delicious," he said, after he swallowed. "You're an excellent cook."

"Thank you," she said. "I do my best."

He finished off the sandwich and the glass of juice. "Thank you, that was excellent," he said.

She took the plate. "Would you like another glass of juice? Water, perhaps?"

"Water, thank you."

She went back into the house and returned with the goblet full of water. "Here you go," she said. "I was wondering if maybe you weren't ready to talk to the Elder. He might be able to tell you how you got here, and from where."

"And how to get back, hopefully."

"If there is a way, it won't be easy," Sayela said. "I doubt you'll find your way back from here. There are places where the distance between planes is lesser. This isn't one of them."

"I got here somehow, there must be a way back. You have a lovely home but I don't belong here."

"I hope you find your way back," she said. "It can't be easy to be picked up and put down in a strange new world. But I hope you live well if you find yourself stuck here for a time."

"I can survive."

"Well, I'll go talk to the Elder. He'll probably come to you. Are you all right to sit here for awhile longer?"

"I'm fine. Thank you for taking the trouble."

"I'll be back in a bit," she said, and headed down the ramp to elsewhere. Loghain sat where he was and felt the itch of boredom close back in around him. It was quite some time before Sayela returned, followed by a white-haired elven man more powerfully built than elves Loghain was accustomed to seeing. Rather than being willowy, this man was as solid as any strong human, albeit shorter.

Loghain stood up and offered his hand to the man. "You are the village Elder?" he asked.

"I am. My name is Ardenal."

"Loghain Mac Tir."

The Elder sat down in the other chair, and Loghain sat back down as well. "Tell me about your homeland," the Elder said. "By the unique details I may be able to tell you what plane you come from."

"I hardly know what might be of use to you," Loghain said.

"Well, here is a detail that tells much: does your realm know of magic?" the Elder asked.

"Yes, we have mages."

"Mages. That is telling. Not everyone can use magic where you live?"

"No. Do you mean they can here?"

"Here and on many planes. Specialized magic is rare, and often seeps into an otherwise magicless plane from another plane of powerful magic. It is drawn to certain people and not to others."

"Our magic is said to come from a place called the Fade, where all humans and elves go when they dream. Dwarves don't have a connection to the Fade, and none of them can use magic."

"Is that what the native denizens of that plane call it? The Fade?" the Elder asked.

"As far as I'm aware. Not having a connection to the magic myself, I'm not much of a draw to the demons that live there. I haven't really encountered any, not when I was awake, at least."

The Elder nodded thoughtfully. "There are several planes that I know of which draw their magic from other planes, some of which are home to what could be termed demons. These are powerfully magical creatures that are often drawn to the magical connection made by these people from the other, more material plane. Is there anything about your world that is strange or unique?"

"Well…there are the darkspawn."

"Darkspawn? Tell me more."

So Loghain did. He told the Elder everything he knew about the Old Gods, about how the Maker cast down the Tevinter magisters that invaded the Golden City, about the darkspawn, and about the Archdemon. He didn't bother to worry about Grey Warden secrecy, he considered it moot in a place where there were no darkspawn and thus no reason for the Grey Wardens to recruit. The telling took a good hour even in his terse version, and when he finished the Elder sat and thought for a time.

"I can't say I've ever heard of creatures like you're describing, but they must be the giveaway detail for someone who is more familiar with other planes than I. It is clear you are from another plane. This Old God, the Archdemon, must have sent you here. The wood told one of our hunters where to find you, and likely told the nymph to heal you. That is something the wood would most likely not do unless you were god-touched. Gods can cross planes as easily as men can cross streams. I believe this Archdemon, this Urthemiel, crossed into our plane when it died in yours, and brought you with it, either by accident or design. The fact that you were jerked out of your clothing makes me suspect it was an accident, as though perhaps you were caught up in its wake."

"But…you think the Archdemon is dead, then? Even though I survived."

"You said this other Warden, Riordan, that he told you your soul would be destroyed. That was a foolish thing for him to say. The soul cannot be destroyed, only the physical vessel. It is likely you would have died if you had not been brought to the nymph's powerful healing magic. Probably this is what happened to your predecessors, who killed Archdemons and were slain in the process. You survived perhaps because you are a bit more vigorous than they were, or because you, unlike they, were carried to this place where healing was possible. In your world, the Archdemon is no more. I believe it has found new life here, in our realm. Possibly in another form, possibly only as energy. It had a connection with this world, or with the nymph's glade perhaps."

"It was a beautiful place. Urthemiel was supposedly the god of beauty once upon a time, before it went mad."

"I think it likely that you have hit upon the connection. Any place associated with a nymph is a place of great natural beauty."

"I don't suppose you know how I might get back to my plane, do you?" Loghain asked.

The Elder shook his head. "I am afraid not. Crossing planes is difficult or impossible for ordinary people, and harder still is it to choose which plane you cross to. There may be a way, but I do not know it."

"Well, thank you regardless. You've put my mind at ease a bit regarding the state of things back home. If I'm stuck here, at least I'm somewhat assured that I haven't left a big mess behind me. At least, not a mess I had any control over in the first place."

"I hope you can find your way back home," the Elder said. "I hope that you find a home here if you cannot."

"Thank you. I don't think I'm in the market for a new home, but part of me does think it is perhaps for the best if I'm trapped here for what remains of my life. I suppose I will have to find a place to stay, in one of the human settlements. I would imagine there are plenty of those, though they are likely far from so wild a place as this."

"My people live in the primordial forests," the Elder said. "We live within our environment. Humans create their own environments, as far as they are able. They cut down the forests and plow up the grasslands. It is their way. We keep to our places and protect them when we must, for humans spread like locusts. That, too, is their way. You won't find it difficult to find a human settlement, you have only to leave the forest. Getting that far may be difficult, but we will give you a weapon, and you will have Elilia - a competent hunter."

"I met her. She's clearly not the talkative type. Is there any particular reason I should know why she wants to leave her people?"

"It is nothing, only the whim of an impetuous young woman. She has a home here waiting for her if ever she wishes to return."

"The wood isn't big enough for her," Loghain said.

"It would seem that it is not."

Sayela descended the ramp and returned in a moment with another ceramic bottle. "Your next dose is here," she said, and waggled the bottle in the air. "You'd better take it now, and maybe get some rest."

"All I've been doing is resting," Loghain complained, but he took the bottle and swigged it down. He grimaced and chased it with the last gulp from his water. "Agh. Well, I suppose. It was good of you to talk with me, Elder. I thank you."

The Elder stood up, and so did Loghain. The men shook hands and the Elder turned and headed down the ramp to wherever he'd come from. Loghain allowed Sayela to chivvy him back through the house to the back room, where he lay down on the straw pallet.

"You should be stronger by the time you wake up," Sayela said. "Two potions is generally the most anybody needs to make a full recovery. I know you're anxious to be up and about. You'll look like a flat-eared dark elf for awhile longer, but you should be on your way tomorrow if you want."

"What's a dark elf?" Loghain asked.

"You don't have dark elves where you're from? A dark elf is an elf that lives underground. They have very dark skin, grey or blue-black, like your bruises."

"I didn't know there were different races of elves. There's only one, as far as I know, where I'm from."

"Well there's several races here. There aren't too many differences between most of us but we rather keep to ourselves by and large."

"Cultural differences?" he asked.

"Yes, though I suppose a human wouldn't see much difference, since there can be such varied differences in human culture that you war with each other."

"The big problem with all the different human cultures is that we all think our culture should be the only one, and try to force it down the throats of other peoples, human and otherwise," Loghain said.

"Is that the way you feel, too? That your culture should be the only one?" Sayela asked.

"I can't deny it. It's a human thing. There's only one group of people whose throats I'd like to ram anything down, however, and yours isn't that group."

"What group is?" Sayela asked.

"Back home, there is a nation that stands next to mine. Long ago, when I was a boy, they were in control of us, and tried to force their culture upon us. There was a war, and we finally managed to shake their grip off of us. Fears that they one day would conquer us again led me down a bad road."

"How bad?" she asked.

"Bad enough that I very nearly destroyed everything I worked my entire life to protect."

"Was it really so bad, having to live beneath their culture?" she asked.

"They believe that anyone not born to wealth and power is for the using, whether they want to rape you or kill you for no good reason. That's the way they treat their own people, you can imagine how badly they treated us."

"I can understand why you'd be fearful that would happen again."

"I let my fear get the better of me."

"Are you going to stay fearful for your country's safety even here?" she asked.

"I am. There may be nothing I can do about it even if I manage to make it home, however, so I will try not to let it rule me."

"I listened to what you told the Elder. I think I understand what a Grey Warden is now. But I didn't need to hear your explanation to know you were a soldier. Do you think you will stay with that profession if you have to live here?"

"I have nothing to fight for here. I suppose there's always work for a man with a strong sword arm, though. I owe a debt that I haven't completely repaid. I'll do what I can to help people until I leave this place or breathe my last, whichever comes first."

"I hope you're telling the truth. I can't say I have a lot of trust for humans, but I believe you. If nothing else, you strike me as a man who doesn't waste time on lies."

"I lie when I have to, but for the most part you're right. Lying is a waste of time and energy. I have nothing to gain from a lie anyway, since I'm not particularly concerned about your opinion of me. I'm grateful for the help you've given me, and indebted to you, but I don't think you have to like me."

"I have an idea you're a hard man, maybe a hard man to like. I do, though. I'm glad I was able to help you," Sayela said.

"I don't think you would say that if you knew me better. I appreciate it, though. It can't be easy to say you like any human, all personal issues aside. We don't engender such amongst other races by and large, or even our own."

Sayela moved towards the door. "I'll leave you to rest, now. Tomorrow we'll see if you're ready to leave us. I think you will be."

"I think you'll be glad to see the back of me. I would still like to do something in repayment before I leave," Loghain said.

"We need for nothing, but we'll wish you well as you go."

She left the room, and Loghain lay back with his hands behind his head and stared up at the wood plank ceiling. He thought he wouldn't sleep, but, perhaps because of the medicine or only the fresh air, in a very few minutes he dropped into a deep, dreamless slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Dragon Age_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T

**Spoilers: **Takes place immediately after the events of _Dragon Age: Origins._

**A/N:** I owe a lot to _Dungeons and Dragons_. I collect fantastic creatures the way others collect stamps, and a good portion of my collection comes from the fantasy game. This is not a crossover into any _Dungeons and Dragons _world, but I've taken some of their beasts as the template for my own, such as the bariaur, a centaur-like being fond of friendly competition. In the game, they are found on the plane of Ysgard, but this isn't Ysgard. My Kobolds, on the other hand, are more like gnomes than lizard people, as they are in the game. I'll make a note of it when I'm using a _D&D _template, like say for the blink dogs that are upcoming. I suppose that makes this a crossover by default, but I'm not changing the designation on the main page, I just don't plan on borrowing that much.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Auldenwood**

When next he woke, Loghain immediately climbed up off of the pallet and to his feet. He stretched and tested himself, and found himself mostly sound, barring some residual tenderness. He had no idea what time it was, for the window looked out only on dark trees and it could have been any time from first light to twilight, but on the whole he thought it was probably morning. He had slept in his new clothes, not something he had really intended to do, and he felt a bit gamey. The elves were clean, so presumably there were bathing facilities somewhere about, or at least a stream. He would ask Sayela, when next he saw her, where he might bathe. He didn't want to wake her if she was sleeping, or wander through her house unattended, so he sat down in the twig-back rocker to wait for her inevitable arrival. It didn't take long.

"I heard you get up," she said as she entered the room. "How are you feeling?"

"Just fine. I was hoping that I might avail myself of the local bathing facilities, if nobody minds. I smell a bit like a wild boar at the moment."

She smiled a bit but said nothing. He guessed that she was thinking a bath wouldn't help him much, and that was all right. He personally thought dwarves smelled a bit strongly, so he understood. After that innocent little pause, she spoke.

"That's fine. I should have offered it myself, but I wasn't sure how humans deal with such things. I'll draw up some water from the river."

"If water needs to be carried, I'll do it."

"You're welcome to try, if you think you're strong enough," Sayela said. "It's not a short trip, and I don't want you straining yourself."

"With two blood replenishing potions in me I'm fully blooded again. If the nymph really did a good job of healing me I shouldn't have any trouble carrying a few buckets up and down. Where's the river?"

"Just below, on the other side of the clearing. The buckets are hung on the side of the house by the ramp. It'll probably take two trips, if you can carry both buckets."

He went outside and found the buckets, two fairly large pails on a yoke. He imagined Sayela carrying those buckets up the ramp fully filled and wondered how she managed it. She was built more strongly than elves he was used to but was still a slim-built woman. He didn't doubt that she could do it, though. He'd long ago learned not to underestimate the female sex.

The river flowed on the other side of the clearing, just past the cultivated land. He filled both buckets and slung the yoke across his shoulders and brought it back up to the house. It felt terrific to put his muscles to use again, better than expected because he felt nothing in his joints where for years he'd experienced the creaks and groans of age. He pounded back up the ramp at a fast trot, which made the buckets swing and slosh a bit and caused several of the locals to come out on their porches and watch him. He felt a little bad for disturbing the silence, the elves surely weren't used to human-sized rambunctiousness. He just couldn't help himself. The overwhelming sense of freedom that came with movement urged him to push.

"Woah, slow down, big fella. Where's the fire?" Sayela said.

"Sorry. It feels so good to be up and about I couldn't help but press myself a bit."

"Well, I guess you are back to full strength. Here, I'll show you where the bathtub is."

She led him to a room at the back of the house where a large wooden tub was set into the floor, anchored to the trunk of the tree. She put in a wooden stopper and he emptied the buckets into it and went back to the river for more water. Before he got it, however, he moved off into the trees well away from the village and the water source and took care of his full bladder. He returned to the buckets, filled them, and carried them back to the house. He emptied them into the tub and then went back outside and hung the yoke back on its pegs on the side of the house.

"Do you need any more water before I take my plunge? Water or anything else?" he asked Sayela.

"No, I'm fine. I'll make you up some breakfast while you're bathing," she said. "Just let the water out when you're done."

He entered the bathing chamber, latched the door, disrobed, and sank into the well-chilled water. He didn't mind that it was cold, cold-water bathing was a Fereldan thing. Hot baths were reserved for treating injuries or the wealthy who were inclined to the sybaritic pleasures, which was not Loghain. He washed himself with soap and water and did what he could to clean his hair. It was the most thorough look he'd taken at his body since he awakened, and hardly an inch of skin was colored normally. The rest was interesting shades of black, blue, purple, brown, red, and yellow. Apart from the discoloration he didn't seem to be in bad shape; every part of him was roughly where it should be. He wouldn't be winning any awards for beauty any time soon, but then, he'd never really been in the running in the first place. At least he didn't stink anymore, although Sayela and her kin might disagree.

He took the plug out of the tub and watched the water drain through to the ground seventy feet below. He dried himself and dressed and returned to the front room, where Sayela prepared food. He found her frying a huge slab of venison. He sat down at the table nearby.

"You're sure there's nothing I can do for you?" he said. "I'm more than happy to carry water or scrub floors, whatever happens to need doing."

"Thank you, but everything that needs doing is done," she said. "I'll have your breakfast ready in a minute."

She finished frying up the meat, put it on a plate, and plunked it down on the table in front of him.

"That's a lot of meat," he said. "Is this a typical breakfast for a…what did you say, sylvan elf?"

"No, we don't eat meat more than once or twice a week at most. We mostly eat grains and vegetables."

"Then why feed me so much meat?"

"Well, you're human. Humans eat meat."

"Probably more often than you do, but we do eat grains and vegetables, too, just so you know that. We're not pure carnivores, if the thought makes you nervous."

She smiled, with a bit of a blush to her cheeks. "I know that, but you do need a lot of meat, don't you? As big as you are, certainly."

"I actually eat more vegetables than meat, under ordinary circumstances," he said. "Not that I don't appreciate a good venison steak, because I do."

"That surprises me. You're so muscular, I thought for certain you ate meat more than anything."

"I eat barley and beans more than anything. Meat is a welcome treat."

"Is that a soldier's diet where you come from? Barley and beans?" she asked.

"It is. It's not exactly delicious but it makes Ferelden's soldiers what they're known to be, bigger and stronger than any other soldiers in Thedas. Of course, Fereldans run a bit big in the first place."

"Are most Fereldans your size?" she asked. "I've never really met any humans before, so I don't know what's large and what's small."

"Average height for a male human in Ferelden is six feet, so I'm a little on the tall side," he said. "There's lots of weeds like me that break that mark, though."

"Six feet. That's tall."

"There's taller. Back home there are people that call themselves qunari, and they're about six and a half to seven feet tall."

"Qunari? They're not humans?"

"No. Actually qunari is the name of their religion, and some that follow it are human, but I don't know the name of the race. They call themselves different things if they're out of the religion. They're big, they're burly, and most of them have horns. That's as much as I know about them, though I spent a short amount of time in the company of one of them recently. He wasn't much of a talker, and I wasn't inclined to socialize."

"Do you want something else to eat?" Sayela asked.

"No indeed, but I wouldn't mind sharing this with you. I don't usually eat this much in a sitting."

"I suppose I could eat some."

Loghain took the knife she'd given him and cut the venison steak in half. Sayela put a second setting on the table and he forked half the meat onto her plate. "Are you sure that's enough for you?" she asked.

"More than. Sit. Eat."

They shared a quiet breakfast with each other, and then Loghain insisted on doing the washing up. Sayela sat and watched him scrub the wooden dishes, cups, and flatware. The only thing that was metal was the iron pan she'd used to fry up the meat, and something in the sturdy construction of it suggested to him that it was dwarven-made.

"Do your people trade with dwarves?" he asked.

"For some things. They're much better metallurgists than we are," Sayela said. "There's a surface outpost not too many miles distant so our hunters go there from time to time to trade for things we can't make ourselves."

"I would imagine there are far more dwarves in this world than there are in mine. Back home they have the darkspawn to contend with, and they're all but wiped out," he said.

"There are creatures they have to contend with here, too, though nothing as bad as these darkspawn sound. Their warriors are great, so they handle the underworld threats without outside assistance most of the time."

He finished the cleaning up and hung the damp washcloth to dry on the nearby towel rack. "There's really nothing else I can do for you?" he asked. "I feel pretty low running out on you after everything you've done for me."

"I didn't help you to get anything out of it," she said. "Don't let it bother you."

"It's going to, but perhaps the best thing I can do for you is to promise that no one will ever find their way here to your home by information obtained from me," he said. "Nor by the leading."

"We would appreciate that," she said. "We like our peace."

They moved outside to the front porch. Loghain took one last look around at the little village in the trees. "It's a lovely place you have here," he said. "I hope it always stays this peaceful."

"As do I," Sayela said. "And I hope you find a peaceful place for yourself."

Loghain grunted. "Not to be rude or anything, but I'm not cut out for peaceful places. I think I'd go mad inside of minutes if I had to stay in a quiet place for very long."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," she said. "Still I hope you find something approaching peace, if not quiet. If you're ready to go, I will tell the Elder and Elilia. She's been quite eager to leave."

"There's no good reason to wait. The sooner I'm out from underfoot the happier you'll be," Loghain said.

"Actually you've been good company," Sayela said.

"That's a surprise. I've never been good company once in my life," he said. "I'm glad if I managed to behave myself this once."

Sayela led him down the ramp to the clearing below and left him there while she went to speak with the Elder. While he stood there alone at the base of the trees, Elilia slid down one of her ropes and landed a few feet away. She was dressed for traveling, with a pair of sturdy boots, a traveling cloak, and a bow and quiver strapped to her back. She acknowledged him with a jerk of the head that was not quite a nod, and stood and waited in the same silence that he did.

Word must have spread, for the entire village began to gather in the clearing, and Loghain felt himself the object of several dozen pairs of curious eyes. He supposed humans were something of a novelty to these elves, when they weren't a nuisance. The Elder came down from his house, and he carried a bow and quiver in his hands. After a few more minutes, Sayela came back down to the clearing as well, with a small knapsack. She handed this to Loghain.

"I packed some foodstuffs for you, the kind of things we take with us when we travel," she said. "It's just some elven bread and fruit bark, but it will keep you going on the road so you don't have to hunt for every meal."

"Thank you. I appreciate this, and everything else you've done for me. I don't deserve such consideration, particularly from elves, but it is appreciated."

The Elder stepped forward. "We have little use for blades larger than a belt knife," he said. "Our sword craft isn't much. Our bow craft, on the other hand, is unparalleled. If you are familiar with the art of archery, you are welcome to one of our bows." He held out the bow and quiver in his hands.

"It's been some years since I've used a bow, but I was once quite good at it. I don't think I've been without a bow in my hands long enough to have forgotten the knack of it."

"Then may it bear you to good fortune, wherever you fare."

Loghain took the bow and bowed over it. "I thank you. I have never borne such a fine bow as this."

"Can we get going?" Elilia said. "I'd like to put some miles behind us before dark."

"You do not have to leave us, child," the Elder said to her. "Your home is here."

"Let's just go," Elilia said, and tugged at Loghain's arm.

"All right, keep your trousers on," Loghain said. He shouldered the quiver and strung the bow over his shoulder as well. He addressed the Elder again. "I thank you for all your people have done for me. I've already said this to Sayela, and I would like to say it now to you: No one will ever find their way here by word from me, and I will never lead anyone here, for any reason. I'll not let my presence in this world disturb your peace."

"We thank you for that," the Elder said. "You take the well-wishes of the village with you when you go. And if I might ask one favor of you?"

"Of course," Loghain said.

"I know you are not likely to stay together for long, but while she is in your company, look after Elilia for us. She can be so impetuous."

"I'll do my best. Something tells me she won't take kindly to too much supervision," Loghain said. Elilia scowled at him.

Loghain turned to her and adjusted the bow on his shoulder. "All right, if you have nothing to say to your people, let us depart."

"Finally. This way," she said, and set off for the edge of the village. Loghain turned back to the elves, nodded once, and followed after her.

Elilia set a strong pace despite her relatively short legs, and the forest swallowed the village behind them in short order. She didn't seem inclined to conversation, and Loghain wasn't inclined to converse either, but the unfamiliar flora begged certain questions.

"Are any of these plants good for eating?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Which ones?"

"I don't know."

Loghain sighed. "Didn't pay attention when your elders tried to teach you woodcraft, did you? Probably the only elf in the forest that doesn't know a thing about it."

"I learned what I needed to learn. I notice you're not exactly well-informed," she said.

"I'm new here. In my homeland I can name you every medicinal herb and every edible plant."

"Good for you."

He chose to take no notice of her offensive tone. He reached out and broke off the head of a familiar-looking plant. "This looks like something we have back home. A fiddlehead fern, we call it. This is the edible part. They're pretty tasty. Is this something similar to what I know?"

"Why don't you eat it and see?" she said, still in that offensive tone.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said. "I don't eat anything I don't know."

She stopped, turned around, grabbed the plant out of his hand, and stuffed it in her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and spoke. "We call 'em curlies. They're good, but if you eat a bunch of 'em raw like this you'll get a little weak. I also know about morel mushrooms and half a dozen kinds of tree nuts, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I'm a hunter, not a gatherer."

"We have morels in Ferelden. I wonder why fiddleheads would have a different name, but morels wouldn't?" he said.

"I don't know," she said. "Do you ever shut up, or are you just going to yap on and on this whole trip?"

He couldn't help it. He smiled. "Surprisingly enough, I do, occasionally, shut up."

"Good. Let's get moving."

They proceeded on their way through the forest in silence. Loghain didn't ask the names of the giant trees that towered with their branches high overhead, nor did he ask about the potential medicinal properties of the mosses that grew on the massive trunks. These questions and the many others that occurred to him were valid enough in his mind to break with his usually taciturn demeanor, but Elilia was not the person to ask. Sayela would have made at least an effort to answer his questions, but Elilia was not inclined to make any effort to communicate anything. It didn't bother him overmuch, he wasn't big on answering questions himself.

Elilia might have been leading him anywhere, for he knew nothing of what lay beyond the forest, but he kept an eye on their heading as they proceeded onward and he learned that she was taking him more or less directly west, with her woodcraft strong enough evidently to keep them on a straight heading despite the confusion of trees all around them. Thanks to that, he was content to allow her to lead, trusting that she knew at least enough about the forest to bring them through it safely to its edge, if no farther. Around midday they stopped long enough to rummage in their knapsacks for food. Loghain came up with a bar of pressed grains, nuts, and berries held together with what he presumed was honey, the "fruit bark" Sayela had made for him, and Elilia munched on small squares of crisp bread that smelled of herbs. They ate on the move, and by the time they stopped to gather brush and fallen wood for a campfire they were mostly away from the giant, primordial trees and into a forest that looked far more familiar to Loghain, with birch trees mixed among trees similar in appearance to others he recognized, like ash and oak and locust. Loghain built the fire while Elilia turned her knapsack into a lumpy pillow and sat against the bole of a tree and ate more elven bread. Loghain turned to his own knapsack once the fire was strong and found a few pieces of his own. They were light and crisp and buttery, almost like large crackers, but not quite so dry. If he had something to wash them down with, they would have been perfect.

"Do you think there's water near here?" he asked. They were the first words he'd spoken since he'd said he could stay quiet.

"We're still a few miles from the nearest stream, so if you're thirsty you're just going to have to suffer 'til tomorrow," Elilia said. "You can get some moisture from the leaves the bread was wrapped in. Just chew 'em. They're pretty tasty."

Loghain unfolded one of the leaves and chewed it. It was extremely rubbery, but tasted a lot like spinach. He did feel less dry once he'd eaten the whole thing. He lumped up his own knapsack and settled in to watch the fire for awhile as darkness settled in. He hadn't had to sleep quite so rough as this in some time, and didn't think he'd even attempt it. Elilia too stayed in a seated position, and stared into the flames. Neither of them made any effort at conversation.

Dry twigs snapped and popped in the fire, which may have been why they didn't hear the stealthy approach of hooves. Loghain's peripheral vision caught a flash of movement in the trees, and he rolled to his feet with his bow drawn and at the ready.

"Peace," a voice said. "I mean you no harm."

Loghain did not lower his bow. He could see the owner of the voice, but his brain struggled to piece together the vision. His experience told him that what he saw was a qunari in the company of a large mountain goat, but his eyes insisted on putting the two together into one bizarre creature with the head, arms, and upper body of a horned man, and the four legs of a goat below the waist.

"Put that down," Elilia said. "It's only a goatling."

"Bariaur, thank you," the creature said. "My name is Tlingatchk, but you are welcome to call me Chick. The wood told me of travelers through these parts. I've been tracking you for most of the afternoon."

"For what purpose?" Loghain asked. He didn't lower the bow. He still couldn't decide what he was looking at.

"I would like to join your company," the creature, Chick, said. He had his hands up, defensively. "I am seeking adventure in the wider world, and I would prefer not to travel alone."

"Let him join us," Elilia said. "Goatlings are supposed to be good luck."

"That is pure superstition," Chick said. "And I would really prefer it if you referred to me as a bariaur, if you must refer to me by race."

Loghain lowered the bow but didn't release the bowstring. "Answer me one question first," he said. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm a bariaur," Chick said. "A goatling, if you really must. You've never heard of us?"

"I'm…I'm from another plane," Loghain said. "You're just…one creature? Human and goat?"

"I am neither human nor goat, but I look like a combination of both. You're really from another plane? That makes a certain amount of sense. I wondered why the wood would direct me to the company of a human. You must be god-touched."

"That's what they tell me," Loghain said. He let the bowstring loosen at last. Chick's appearance still had him on edge, but the creature had not made a threatening move.

"Interesting. And on your plane, bariaurs are not native. Do you have centaurs?" Chick asked.

"No. What are centaurs?" Loghain said.

"They're like us, only they resemble horses with human foreparts. They're found on far more planes than bariaurs. If your home plane has neither, it is no wonder my appearance has taken you off guard. I must appear very foreign to your eyes," Chick said.

"You can say that again. I'm still not sure what I'm looking at," Loghain said. "You are familiar with other planes?"

"Somewhat. The elders of my tribe make something of a study of other planes."

"I don't suppose they know how to cross planes, do they?" Loghain asked.

"I'm afraid not. They can look across planes with special magical devices but travel is beyond their powers."

"They can look? They can see what's happening on these other planes?" Loghain asked.

"Yes, to a limited extent."

Loghain stood up. He still had to look up to see Chick's face. "Can you take me to them? I need to know what's happening in my homeland."

"Woah woah woah woah wait," Elilia said, with one hand up. "I'm taking you to the human lands, not to the bariaur lands. That's days in the other direction."

"It isn't necessary to go far out of your way to see what is happening back home," Chick said. "My understanding is that there are human scholars who also use the plantirs, to look across planes. You would likely find them in a large settlement."

"High elves use them, too, but you'd never get one of them to look at anything for you," Elilia said. "If you want to see what's happening at home, your best bet is to ask your own people to tell you."

"What she says is true," Chick said. "There is much mistrust between races, particularly between humans and others. Even god-touched, you would be hard-pressed to find cooperation."

Loghain looked from Chick to Elilia and back again. "You are certain I would be able to find these…plantirs, and the scholars that know how to use them, among humans?"

"Yes," Chick said. "As I said, I do not know where, but other humans likely would."

Loghain sat back down and gestured to the fireside. "Please, join us. I suppose I seemed rather desperate, but you must understand that I am. My homeland was in grave danger when I was torn from it, and I'm worried about the way I left things. My name is Loghain."

Chick lowered himself to the ground by the fire. He looked at Elilia. "And your name is?" he asked.

"Elilia," she said.

"You are of the sylvan elves, yes? And if I'm not mistaken, you are also planetouched, is that not so?"

Chick said.

Elilia turned a more ferocious glare than any she had yet given Loghain on the bariaur. "I don't want to talk about that," she said, and bit each word off aggressively.

"Very well then," Chick said, with his hands raised in a placatory way. "I only find it a curious coincidence that the two of you should be together."

"We're not 'together.' We're just…nearby," Elilia said.

Chick gave her a strange look. "All right, as you say. You are…'nearby.' If I might ask, what are your plans? Are you off for adventure like I am, or do you have some grand design in mind?"

"I'm just off. I don't care where I go or what I do," Elilia said.

"I see." Chick turned back to Loghain. "And you? Do you have any plans?"

"None whatsoever," Loghain said. "I have to see what's going on back home, and I'd like to get back there if I can, but what happens between now and then is an open question."

"You do not know why you were brought to this place?" Chick asked.

"No. It may have been accidental. It probably was."

"Well, forgive me if the question was a bit impertinent. I know you both must be tired after a long day, and I myself have been traveling for several days. I will let you rest. I will just find something to eat and then I will go to sleep myself."

Chick stood up and reached high into the trees. He pulled down leaves and stuffed them into his mouth.

"You eat leaves?" Loghain asked.

"Leaves, nuts, berries, sometimes grass," Chick said. "Bark if there's absolutely nothing better to eat, say if a particularly fierce winter saps our stores."

"Do you ever eat meat?" Loghain asked.

Chick grimaced. "Some of the hunters eat meat on occasion, but I've never felt the desire to try it myself."

"How long since you first set off on your own?" Elilia asked. "I've never heard of a goatling traveling outside the flock before."

"Just a few days," Chick said. "I want to see something of the world before I settle down and start a family."

"A young…_man_…with a fancy to travel," Loghain said. "I understand that."

"Were you similarly inclined, sir?" Chick asked.

"Not exactly. I did travel a lot as a young man, but it wasn't for choice."

"For what did you travel?" Chick asked.

"At first, to avoid the unfair laws of an occupied nation. Later, I traveled to make war against our occupiers. I didn't want to travel. I would have done just about anything to have a stable homelife. Come to think of it, I _did_ do just about anything to have a stable homelife. I just don't know how stable it ever really was."

"You were a soldier," Chick said.

"Yes. To the exclusion of much of anything else."

"In what other ways did you define yourself? Husband? Father?" Chick asked.

"I was a dreadful husband, and I can't speak to what sort of father I was. My daughter turned out all right, I think, but that probably didn't have much to do with me. I was a politician but never much shakes at it, and on the rarest of occasions I was called upon to be a diplomat, which was never anything short of disastrous. The only thing I was ever good at was warfare, which is a terrible thing to have a talent for but everyone has to be good at something."

Chick finished his arboreal meal and lay back down. He folded his arms over his human chest and curled his upper spine into a supple coil so that his human half rested on his goat body. Loghain built up the fire and then sat back against his tree with his knapsack behind his head for a pillow. He thought they were done talking, but after a few minutes of silence Elilia spoke.

"You have a daughter?" she asked.

"That is directed at me?" Loghain said. "I believe I mentioned that already."

"What's her name?" Elilia said.

"Anora."

She nodded, almost thoughtfully, and then snuggled back into her own knapsack pillow and closed her eyes. Loghain watched her curiously for a moment, then settled in himself and closed his own eyes.

They rose shortly before dawn, carefully extinguished the fire, and ate a cold breakfast in the darkness. Chick proved himself a talker, and filled the morning with questions and observations, not noticeably deterred by his companions' silence. Loghain couldn't speak for Elilia, but he rather enjoyed the one-sided conversation. He learned things about the woods and the world by listening to the chatter, and he didn't even have to ask the questions in his mind. Chick seemed a font of information on medicinal herbs, and his knowledge of what was edible seemed reliable since he was completely sustained by it. There was also a comforting familiarity in the constant chatter, and not too many miles had passed before he recognized it: Chick, strange as he looked, reminded him of Maric. Even his voice was similar.

In his silence, Loghain had plenty of time as he walked to study his new companions. Chick took a great deal of study, since Loghain still couldn't quite wrap his mind around what he saw when he looked at him. From the waist down he was pure mountain goat, with four long, sturdy legs with cloven hooves, with cream-white hair and a short tail, and below his tail an impressive set of male equipment free to swing in the breeze, while from the waist up he appeared more or less human, with strong muscles across a bare chest and down long arms. He had pointed ears like an elf, and curly horns like a goat. His head was bald and his eyes were brown, large, and almond-shaped. The only thing he wore was a quiver and a bow, and a knife secreted in the strap of his quiver. He had a thin, straggly cream-white beard on his chin that did not extend to his cheeks. He was about five feet high at the goat shoulder, which meant that his horned head was held high in the air somewhere between eight and nine feet up. His upper spine seemed unusually flexible, and he was able to turn a hundred and eighty degrees to look over his own shoulder. Loghain had to wonder what he looked like on the inside. Did he have two hearts? Two pairs of lungs? And how many stomachs? It boggled the mind.

Elilia was comparatively familiar in appearance. She was built like a particularly strong human woman, and every bit as tall, roughly five feet and nine inches, if not a little bit more. She wore her ash-blonde hair in a loose ponytail and her clothes were rough and mannish. Her slightly horsey face was rather mannish, too, with a beaky nose and an obstinate chin. Her expression did her appearance no favors, for she wore a perpetual scowl. Loghain's lips curved into an unwilling smile when he realized that the familiarity of her appearance came from his own shaving mirror. She was a feminine and elven version of himself.

The thought of a shaving mirror made him reach up to run fingers across the dark stubble that blanketed his cheeks and chin. He would have to invest in one, along with a razor, as soon as he'd earned a bit of coin for himself - the weather was warm and his feet were tough, he might even prioritize it before a good pair of boots. He'd never liked the feel of a growing beard, and he'd never thought his appearance would be improved by one, either. His face was too thin.

"Morels are tasty, but my favorite by far are tallcaps. Then there are pinbutton mushrooms, which are tasty and can be stewed into healing potions, they promote cellular regeneration. Of course there's a whole host of mushrooms that you can extract poison from, if you're interested in that kind of thing. I'm really not, but I understand the usefulness of such things…to an extent," Chick said. "What about you, soldier? Do you use any poisons in your work, or do you prefer a straightforward fight?"

"Pardon? Oh. I've never had much use for poison myself. Dicey stuff. If someone needs killing I prefer to give them the dignity of a swift strike, not a lingering illness," Loghain said. He was fully aware as he said it that he'd used poison on Arl Eamon, but he didn't consider it a lie. He didn't have much use for poison when killing for himself, and that one time he'd had it used it backfired horribly. Dicey stuff indeed.

"Of course there are poisons that kill outright," Chick said. "But then I suppose a man of your strength has little use for them. In any event they're all dangerous, I'm just as happy to leave them well alone. What are your feelings on the use of poison, Elilia?"

"I was just looking for some," she said. "I was hoping for something to shut you up."

Chick recoiled, stung, and Loghain reached up and clapped him on the human shoulder. "Don't let it bother you. She's a wretched harpy."

Elilia did not trouble to deny the allegation, and indeed seemed somewhat pleased with it. They traveled some distance in silence before Chick regained his equilibrium and began to yammer on again, though he remained somewhat subdued for the rest of the morning. They stopped briefly for lunch around midday, and proceeded on their way after allowing Chick to eat his fill of green leaves. The demeanor of the forest began to change, from a pleasant, well-lit forest to a dark and gloomy place with trees whose branches intertwined to block the sun. They found a clear stream and stopped to drink and clean themselves a bit, and Elilia explained the difference in the forest's appearance.

"We're beyond the sphere of the nymph's influence," she said. "Where she lives the wood is beautiful and relatively safe. The forest will be more dangerous from here on out. Keep alert. You never know what might find you here."

"How much farther to the human lands?" Loghain asked.

"We should reach them tomorrow afternoon, if we make good time today. Camping tonight might be dangerous. We should probably set a watch."

"Shouldn't be a problem. I doubt I'll sleep tonight, either," Loghain said.

They proceeded once they felt a bit fresher, and long before sundown the darkness grew around them. Elilia could see well in the darkness, being an elf, and Chick didn't seem to have a problem either, so Loghain trusted to their keener senses. It was amazing how well the canopy overhead blocked out the sunlight. For his human eyes, the visibility was down to a distance of a few feet.

"This is starting to remind me of the Korcari Wilds," Loghain said. "Do any humans live here, or just elves?"

"No humans," Elilia said. "No elves, either, not around here. Kobolds, maybe, trolls definitely. We're wise to avoid the latter if at all possible."

"I would very much dislike being eaten by a troll," Chick said. "Perhaps we should travel with our bows out."

Loghain took his off his shoulder and drew and arrow. "What does a troll look like?" he asked.

"Big, hairy, ugly, and smelly. Not unlike a human, in fact," Elilia said.

"_Very _unlike a human, in fact," Chick said. "They walk hunched over with their knuckles dragging the ground, stand nine feet tall, and they're as strong as ogres. They are very, very dangerous."

"Are they intelligent?" Loghain asked.

"Somewhat. They have a language, of sorts, and some of them fashion clothes and weapons for themselves, but they're not on the order of an elf or a human in terms of brainpower," Chick said. "Think somewhere along the lines of a not very bright child."

"A not very bright child with the strength to rip you limb from limb," Elilia supplied helpfully.

"Sounds big. I've fought bigger," Loghain said. "Apropos of nothing, I've been meaning to ask, what do you have for dogs in this world?"

"Dogs? Why?" Chick said.

"Dogs are important where I come from," Loghain said. "A good dog is worth as much as any good soldier, and there's no better friend to be found. Of course, Ferelden is home to an unusual breed of dog. Still, even a reasonably smart mutt makes a good companion. I haven't had a dog since I was a boy, but if I'm stuck here, I might like to travel with one again."

"The humans might have domesticated dogs," Elilia said. "I don't know of any myself."

"The only ones I know of are wild," Chick said. "Like she says, it may be different in the human lands. Humans domesticate far more animals than other peoples."

"We're not a good source of information about humans," Elilia said, and for a wonder, she sounded almost apologetic. "I've never been out of the forest before."

"I have," Chick said, "but only because my flock spends part of the year in the grasslands. I've never been around humans before. Haven't spent any time in the company of elves, either, come to think of it, but my flock has dealings with some of the clans."

"Well, there'll be plenty of time to think about it later anyway," Loghain said. "I've waited about forty years, I can wait a bit longer."

They continued on their way for a few more uneventful miles before they decided to stop for the night. They built a fire and had their dinner and settled in. Chick tried to start up a storytelling competition, something traditional for his flock, but being the only one with any stories, quickly lost interest. Loghain sat with his bow in his lap while the others settled in to sleep, and he kept his ears open to the sounds of the night. Hours passed, with only Elilia's quiet snores and the pops and crackles of the fire, before he became aware of a strange clicking sound. At first he thought it was Chick, making noises in his sleep, but the bariaur was silent. Slowly, Loghain climbed to his feet. He peered into the darkness, unwilling to wake his companions yet, uncertain of what was out there.

He saw movement. With a skitter of many legs, several giant spiders burst into the circle of firelight. Loghain swore a startled oath and loosed an arrow into the nearest set of gleaming eyes.

"Hey, wake up! Trouble," he said, and Elilia and Chick were startled awake by his voice. The bariaur stood up immediately and began to loose arrow after arrow, but Elilia was slower to react. A spider leapt for her, and she batted it away with a strong forearm. The creature gathered itself for another lunge, but she drew her bow and put an arrow through its head before it could. With all three of them on the defensive, they killed or drove off all the spiders in a matter of minutes.

They started recovering their arrows. Loghain reached for the first of his and couldn't repress a shudder of revulsion at the hairy mass of spider body he had to draw it from. Elilia saw and crowed at him.

"You're scared of spiders," she said, positively thrilled.

"I am not scared of spiders, I dislike them. I had a bad experience," he said, as he wiped green goo from the pile and shaft. "I think they're revolting, particularly at these sizes."

"I can't blame you for that," Chick said. "They are perfectly designed for the way they live, but not a pleasing aesthetic for the most part. What was your bad experience?"

"Trapped underground with a mob of giant spiders. We had to burn our way out," Loghain said. "Fires underground are a frightening recourse, you never know how they'll burn or where they'll go or if they'll take all your oxygen."

He kicked at the body, and rolled it away from their camp. He shuddered every time his bare foot came into contact with the dead spider. The others helped him clean up and they settled back in for what remained of the night. If giant spiders were the worst they had to face after two days in the woods, Loghain counted them lucky. The rest of the night was uneventful and he even managed an hour or so of sleep before dawn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Dragon Age_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T

**Spoilers: **Takes place immediately after the events of _Dragon Age: Origins._

**A/N: **I'm writing slowly but steadily. I don't have time to get online much these days, though I'm hoping that will change soon. I promise I'll get the chapters of this story up and out as quickly as possible, but I'm only writing at a speed of about a page and a half a day, on average, way down from my normal.

* * *

**Chapter Three: Kobolds**

Fruit bark and elven bread were tasty, but as a staple diet they left something to be desired. Loghain was a man who ate barley and beans three meals a day so it wasn't the monotony that got to him. It was too light, it did next to nothing to satisfy him. Doubtless it was nutritious enough to live off of, but he wouldn't stay in the same physical condition for long on a strict diet of bread and berries. He couldn't expect a mess hall with a carefully portioned ration of good old Ferelden army slop, which likely meant he'd have to hunt for his meals for awhile at least. That was no hardship.

Not so long as he could find game other than giant spiders.

As he ate his morning breakfast of fruit bark he tried not to look at the decomposing bodies of the spiders they'd killed the night before. Just knowing they were there gave him the creeps. It didn't much help that Elilia found his revulsion hilarious. It was good, he supposed, that she was in a good humor for once - she seemed an entirely different person, a sparkling and vivacious individual with many jokes and hijinks, all of them at his expense. She imitated the chittering sounds the spiders made, and made many comments about big, ugly, hairy creatures that are scared of spiders. Oddly enough, the teasing seemed good-natured. Friendly, even. It was a switch from her previous demeanor. He didn't know yet if it was better or worse, but he was leaning toward worse.

They set out in dawn light that was almost indistinguishable from the night's darkness, and Loghain relied on the darkvision of his companions. As the sun rose, the lighting increased slightly, but the forest remained dark and gloomy for several miles until the canopy overhead began to show breaks where the branches didn't quite touch. Elilia said they were nearly to the forest's edge.

"It's only another mile or so," she said. "We're almost out."

Chick stopped, with one foreleg raised. He appeared to be listening to something. "We need to turn away," he said. "We should head north."

"What? Why?" Elilia asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know. The wood spoke to me, and told me to turn."

"I'm going to need a better reason than that to walk out of our way," Elilia said.

Chick looked at her incredulously. "The wood. Told me. To turn. The wood usually has very good reasons for the things it tells you to do."

Loghain raised his hand. "I have a question, if I may. I've heard others speak of hearing the wood speak to them. What do you mean exactly? The trees talk?"

"Well, no, not exactly. It's hard to explain to someone who is unfamiliar with the concept. The forest has a spirit, sometimes benevolent, sometimes dangerous, but always extremely wise and knowledgeable about what goes on beneath its branches. It tends to look out for those who make their home in the sylvan, but it seems to have taken a particular interest in you. Only natural if you are, indeed, god-touched. Right now, it tells me our way will be better served if we turn north. I personally believe it," Chick said.

Loghain looked to Elilia. "Your call," he said.

She seemed disgruntled. "I suppose we'd better turn. After all, could be something terrible up ahead. Like spiders."

She directed their path toward the north and they stepped around the trees in that direction until Chick said he felt it was safe to turn west again.

"Keep your eyes peeled for sign of game," Loghain said. "I don't know about the two of you, but I'm ready for something a little meatier than dry bread and rubbery leaves."

"Loghain is a meat eater," Elilia said to Chick. "Is that going to bother you, goatling?"

Chick grimaced. "Everyone has to live in the way that they live. Humans are omnivores, they eat meat."

Loghain looked at Elilia. "Don't tell me you're a vegetarian, too?" he said. "You told me you were a hunter."

"I am a hunter. I eat meat. But I'm just fine living off of bread, particularly in the presence of a moral herbivore like Chick."

"I'm not a moral herbivore," Chick said.

"Then what's with all the grimacing whenever anyone talks about eating meat?" Elilia said.

"I just find it distasteful, that's all. All that…blood."

"Have you ever killed anything with that bow of yours?" Elilia asked.

"Of course I have," Chick said. "I killed several of those spiders last night."

"And that's it, I take it? I didn't know we were traveling with a virgin," Elilia said.

"What does that have to do with killing things?" Chick said.

"This is more information than we needed to know," Loghain said. "Let the kid alone, Elilia. He's killed, so clearly he can when he has to."

"Of course I can," Chick said. "I knew when I started on this adventure that I wouldn't be able to avoid putting my bow to use forever."

"He killed a couple of big, ugly spiders. I wonder if he'll be able to kill a cute, cuddly rabbit so we can eat it," Elilia said.

"There's no particular reason for him to kill food for us. We have bows, and know how to use them," Loghain said. "Just as long as he doesn't falter in a battle situation."

"If he can't kill a rabbit, what makes you think he'd be able to kill a bandit?"

"Bandits aren't as cute as rabbits," Loghain said. "Could we just proceed? Standing here yammering all day gains us nothing."

"All right, let's find something to eat before we find ourselves in the human lands," Elilia said. "They'll have most of the game scared off, and we don't have coin to buy food."

They cast about for sign, and finally happened upon fresh droppings indicating what Loghain took to be a wild turkey, if that was really what he'd eaten back at Sayela's and not something completely foreign to him, like a feathered lizard or something. He stopped, gave his companions a stern look, and imitated the sound of a turkey call. There was silence for a moment, and then from the forest came a reply. Loghain drew an arrow and nocked it, ridiculously grateful that there were, indeed, turkeys in this world so he didn't look like a complete idiot making turkey sounds. He repeated the call, and the call came back to him from a nearer distance. The brush moved, and a good-sized gobbler stepped out of them, not far ahead. Before it could see them and flee Loghain loosed his arrow and it fell dead with an arrow sticking out of its head.

"I'd say that looks like dinner," he said.

"Yes. Delicious," Chick said, with his teeth bared in a grin of distaste. "All those…bodily fluids. Yummy."

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," Loghain said. "White meat of turkey is one of the finest meals you can have."

"I think I'll pass, thank you," Chick said.

"Oh, now what kind of attitude is that?" Elilia said. "I thought you were out for adventure, goatling. New experiences. Maybe you won't like it, but how do you know 'til you try?"

"You said some of your people eat meat on occasion. Don't you think they might know something you don't?" Loghain said.

Chick held up his hands. "Woah, peer pressure."

"You don't have to eat anything you don't want to eat," Loghain said. "It's just an open option."

They stopped to build a fire and dress out the turkey. Elilia built a makeshift spit and they roasted portions of the meat. Chick watched them eat with a certain reluctant interest.

"Do you want to try it?" Loghain said, and offered a small piece of meat to him. Chick reached out his hand and took it, and with some hesitation raised it to his mouth. He took a tiny nibble, chewed, swallowed hard, and blanched.

"Oh come now, you didn't even taste it with a tiny bite like that," Elilia said.

Chick sighed, looked at the meat in his fingers, and took a real bite of it. He chewed, chewed, chewed, and chewed some more. Loghain could tell that the meat was getting bigger in his mind.

"Spit or swallow, lad, don't let it overpower you," he said.

With some difficulty, Chick swallowed. He grimaced and then he smiled, weakly. "I don't care for it, but I'm glad I tried it. It was definitely a new experience."

"New experiences are good for you," Loghain said. "There might come a time when knowing that you can eat meat if you have to will save your life, although if you can get sufficient nutriment from tree bark you probably don't have much to worry about."

Elilia checked the position of the sun in the sky. "With this break and having to go out of our way, we probably won't make the human lands 'til evening, early evening if we're lucky. I wouldn't think we'd be likely to find a human settlement tonight. Tomorrow, hopefully."

"What do you plan to do once we reach a human settlement?" Chick asked Loghain. "You must need to seek some type of employment, yes? Are you planning on settling in where we happen to land, or will you travel yet awhile?"

"I don't have any particular plans to settle," Loghain said. "I made a vow to help people wherever I can, and my best talent is to use my strength to defend them. If one settlement has nothing threatening its peace I'll move on 'til I find a place that needs me, if any of them do. If none of them do I'll take what work I can get. I was born a farmer, I expect I could turn my hand to farm work again, even at this late date, and there's always people who need someone with a strong back to haul loads from one place to another. I reckon I won't starve, assuming I stay healthy."

"So what you're saying is you're seeking adventure, not for its own sake but for the sake of others. I would join you in this work if you would have me. I have no great desire to travel alone, and everyone is stronger when they join forces with another."

"I'm amenable," Loghain said.

Chick looked at Elilia, who had rather a sour scowl on her face. "What about you?" he asked. "Will you go your separate way, or will you join us? We are stronger together than apart."

"I don't have any better plan," she said, with a careless toss of the head.

"Well, until you come up with a better plan, you're welcome to tag along," Loghain said. Elilia scowled at him. "Keep practicing that expression, one of these days you'll be as good at it as I am," he said, and for a wonder, she laughed. She took some parchment paper out of her knapsack, wrapped the remaining meat in it, and stowed it away.

"This will make a good supper this evening, but we'd better eat it up tonight. It's too bad we can't make jerky out of it, it would keep us a long time."

"What's jerky?" Chick asked.

"Smoked and dried meat. It keeps longer, on journeys. Tastier than salted meats, in my opinion, at least."

"I've never much cared for salted meat myself," Loghain said.

"We might need it if we journey a long time. In a lot of areas there isn't much for game, especially around the human settlements. Chick probably won't have any trouble feeding himself, but I can't live off grass," Elilia said.

"Neither can I," Loghain said. "We'll find a way to earn some coin and see what we can do about provisioning ourselves, once we find a settlement."

They proceeded on their way, after extinguishing the cooking fire. After a time, Chick raised a hand and brought them to a stop. He swiveled his head around and looked to the south.

"What is it? You see something?" Elilia said.

"Kobolds, a patrol of them, maybe twenty strong. I bet that we circled around a kobold encampment, and if they have this many members on patrol, imagine how many are with the main group. We could have walked right into the midst of them. As it is, I think we'd be well-advised to avoid this patrol," Chick said, in a whisper.

"Which way are they headed?" Elilia said, in a whisper of her own.

"They're coming towards us on the diagonal. If we can continue stealthily in the direction we are headed, we should avoid them," Chick said.

"I've got a question," Loghain said, also in a whisper. "What is a kobold, and why are we so keen to avoid them? Not that I'm questioning the decision, you understand, I'm simply curious."

"We need to move," Chick said. "I'll satisfy your curiosity once we're away."

"Deal," Loghain said, and followed his companions quietly. Barefooted, he made less noise than Elilia but slightly more than Chick, whose relatively small hooves made no audible sound to Loghain's ears. They proceeded onward at the fastest speed they could manage quietly, and in a few minutes they came to the edge of the forest, and a wide open pasturage with a few sheep grazing it. There was a farmhouse on the edge of vision, maybe half a mile away, the only structure in sight. It was probably a farm outlying a small village, for people rarely existed far from each other even if they preferred isolation.

"We could ask there where the village is, if we can't see it by the time we get there," Loghain said. "I wouldn't imagine we're too many miles from something resembling civilization, even if it amounts to nothing more than some sort of temple building and a tavern. Either sort of place usually means work, in my experience. The farm might have something for us to do, too, but three wanderers is probably too much to spring on one farm family."

"Particularly considering the outré composition of our party," Chick said.

"Outré? You have Orlesians in this world?" Loghain said.

"Orlesians? No, I've never heard of anything like that," Chick said. "What are Orlesians?"

"A nasty, poncy culture back home. Their language has words like 'outré' in it, but I suppose if the King's tongue is understood in this world then somewhere perhaps some non-Orlesian people speaking something that sounds just like Orlesian. Hope it isn't prevalent, though."

"I have wondered at that," Chick said. "That you are from another world yet speak perfect Common. Your language was limited in your homeland?"

"No, it was known as Common in Thedas, derived from the dwarven trade language. Ferelden and the Free Marches were the only places that used it as a first language, however, and in Ferelden we called it the King's tongue. Proprietary arrogance, I suppose," Loghain said. "Now that we're out of the woods, tell me, what are kobolds?"

"Kobolds are small people, related to gnomes, but not at all well-disposed towards other races, or even their own," Elilia said. "They're not tremendously dangerous except in numbers. A large patrol would have attacked us on sight, and I don't think we had enough arrows to bring them all down."

"They don't make great targets, either," Chick said. "A tall one is two and a half feet, and they're wiry thin."

"Big heads, though, comparatively," Elilia said. "Makes a decent target."

"So what you're saying is, any fight with a kobold necessitates the death of the kobold, simply because you can't hit it in a way to cripple it," Loghain said. "That's always good to know."

"You'll probably come to learn it well. Short of humans, nothing spreads more than kobolds," Elilia said. "You find them in forests, on plains, on mountains, underground…virtually anywhere. They make a tremendous mess."

"Humans living near a large kobold encampment will likely be having confrontations with them," Chick said. "People in this area may be somewhat beleaguered."

"They may need help, but how do you know they aren't starting the trouble? Humans do that," Loghain said.

"They don't need to, where kobolds are concerned," Elilia said. "Kobolds eat meat, any meat. They are particularly fond of human children."

"So you're saying they kidnap children and eat them? That's monstrous," Loghain said.

"It is, and the kobolds are proud of it. They're one of the few things different races; elves, humans, bariaurs, and even giants can agree have to be…'kept in check,'" Chick said.

"Giants," Loghain said.

"Nine to twelve feet, depending on the specific race," Elilia said. "Most of them aren't very friendly, either."

"Nine to twelve feet? Yeah, that qualifies as giant, all right," Loghain said.

They headed toward the farmhouse, with the hope that they might be allowed to bed down in the barn for the night. Loghain was elected to knock at the door, under what he thought was an erroneous assumption that humans would respond more positively toward another human. At his size, with his appearance, and the fact that he was always armed, he'd never learned to expect warm welcomes. Still, he slung his bow across his back and went up to the stoop to knock.

A harassed-looking woman came to the door, a small child in her arms while another tugged at her skirts. Her eyes popped wider at the sight of him, but she didn't slam the door shut.

"May I help you, Sir?" she asked.

"Yes, Ser…my companions and I were hoping you could point us in the direction of the nearest village. We also would like to ask if we could stay in your barn tonight. We have our own food, so that's no concern."

The woman looked at him blankly. "Why did you call me sir?" she asked.

"Should I not have?"

"Well, I'm…I'm a woman," she said.

"My apologies. Where I come from, 'Ser' works for both genders."

"Oh, I see. Well, the village is three miles south and west of here. You can follow the wagon ruts right to it," she said, and pointed out the double track that led from the property. "As to the barn, I…I suppose it will be all right."

"Thank you. We'll stay out of your hair."

They made a cookfire on a grassless patch of land in the back not far from the chicken coop and Loghain roasted the remainder of the turkey for he and Elilia. Chick made do with long grass from the yard. They ate, put out the fire, cleaned up the mess they'd made, and repaired to the barn to spend the night in the hay, a considerably more comfortable bed than bare ground. They shared their billet with a placid milk cow and her calf and a heavily-muscled horse whose likely purpose was to pull the rusted plow that rested at the back of the barn. With the exception of one sleepless night at the Arl of Redcliffe's castle it was the best accommodation Loghain had experienced in some months, since his defeat at the Landsmeet and his subsequent admission into the ranks of the Grey Wardens. The thick pile of scattered straw in the loft was more comfortable than the straw pallet at Sayela's. The smell of it was warm and familiar, and even the sound of the rats scurrying through - and the cats hurrying after them - was comfortingly familiar. This might have been any barn in the bannorn, and Maker knew he had dossed down in many of them. The thought of home brought a sharp pang to his chest, a bitter taste of homesickness to his mouth. The sense of unreality had been his best friend over the past few days, as it kept him from having to fully accept that he was truly lost in a strange new world. Acceptance of his predicament, which had come in random bursts from the moment he first opened his eyes, slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. The persistent feeling that it was all just a peculiarly lifelike Fade dream kept him from succumbing to shock. Like diving into frigid water, it was too much to take in all at once. He had to keep accepting it a little piece at a time, like easing into the water inch by inch. He might still freeze to death, but he could fool himself into thinking things were going to get better instead of worse.

Elilia snored. Not loud, but definitely. She probably hadn't gotten a real night's sleep since she left home. It didn't bother him very much, years of sleep in army camps had pretty well inured him to irritation from night noises. Eventually he was able to sleep himself.

When he woke in the early morning he found it hard to breathe. The mystery of his suppression was solved when he opened his eyes and saw a large, longhaired barn cat curled up on his chest. He scratched the creature behind its tufted ears and it blinked sleepy or perhaps happy amber eyes at him. "So glad you found yourself a nice, warm mattress, Serrah, but I need to get up now," he said.

The cat let out a trilling little chirp sound at complete odds with its impressive size. It made no move to get up, however, so Loghain pushed it off with little ceremony. He got to his feet and so did the cat. It licked a paw, sauntered to the end of the loft with its long, brushy tail in the air, and gathered itself to leap onto the edge of the horse's stall below. From there it bounded down to the ground and returned to hunting mice and rats. Loghain stretched, pulled the straw from his hair and the neck of his shirt, and climbed down the ladder. Chick stirred below.

"Good morning, soldier," he said, after a jaw-stretching yawn. "Where's Elilia?"

"I left her to sleep. I imagine she'll be up soon."

They listened for the sounds of movement up above, and in a few minutes they heard her yawn and stretch. She came down the ladder and stood before them bleary-eyed.

Loghain reached out and plucked something from her hair. "You've got straw in your hair," he said. She reached up to clean the rest of it out.

They went outside and had their light breakfast. Loghain glanced toward the house and saw the farm woman out on the front stoop, while her hand cast shade for her eyes, she peered down the rutted track toward the distant village. She clearly watched for something or for someone, and she looked worried. Loghain finished up his piece of elven bread and went to talk to her.

"Is everything all right, er…milady?" he asked, with a slight stumble when he would have called her "ser."

She startled. "Oh. Er, I'm…I'm waiting for my husband to come home," she said.

"Has he been gone long?" he asked.

"Three days. He went out with our neighbor and his son. There is a large group of kobolds in the woods nearby, and they kidnapped our neighbor's younger son. My husband is a farmer, not a hunter. I'm afraid he…he…"

"I will go and look for your husband," Loghain said.

"Oh, would you? I mean, I hate to ask it of anyone, it would be so dangerous."

"I will look for him. What does he look like?"

"Well he's tall, but not so tall as you. He has brown hair and green eyes, and a mole on his chin. His name is Robert."

"I will find out what happened to him."

He went to speak to his companions. "I am going back to the woods," he said without preamble. "The lady's husband is missing, possibly killed by the kobolds. I've vowed to find out what happened."

"Are you insane?" Elilia asked. "Just that one patrol we avoided was enough to kill all of us. Now you're going to walk right in to the middle of the horde?"

"They kidnapped a child. If there's even a chance of saving him, I need to take it. I don't ask you to come with me."

"You were a soldier," Chick said. "What do you think our odds would be against a large force of kobolds?"

"Probably not great. I've faced down long odds before and I'm not afraid of death. If I die trying to do good for someone else, I think my debt is paid."

"I won't let you go alone," Chick said. "If you insist on fighting, I will fight beside you."

"It will be dangerous," Loghain said. "I'd sooner not have your life on my hands."

"I'll take my life in my own hands," Chick said. "My life and yours, too, if I have to. I don't know what you think you owe, but I don't intend to let you pay that price if I can help it."

"I'm not suicidal. Don't take it into your head that I am," Loghain said.

"No? You sound suicidal. You're going to pay off your 'debt' by killing yourself," Elilia said. "What is this debt? What is it you think you owe?"

"I made a mistake, and it cost my nation dearly. It cost lives. I can't pay back the people who suffered because of me, but I can do whatever I can to make sure that what little remains of my life goes into easing a bit of suffering. That is my debt. My life is what I owe."

She shouldered her bow. "Then I guess it's up to Chick and me to make certain you don't pay it back too quickly."

He smiled slightly. "That is appreciated, but it is quite unnecessary. You're young, you shouldn't put yourself into danger."

"I'm forty-six," Elilia said. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions."

Loghain stared hard at her. "You're not forty-six," he said.

"I think I know how old I am," she said.

"Sylvan elves are shorter-lived than some elves," Chick said, "but they still live longer than humans."

"How old was your Elder?" Loghain asked.

"A hundred and sixty-something," Elilia said. "Sayela is seventy-seven."

"And here I thought I was a contemporary of your Elder. Turns out that I'm closest in age to you. I suppose you are old enough to make your own decisions, but I would beg you to reconsider. Both of you. You don't know me, you certainly don't need to risk your lives with me."

"There's a child's life at stake," Chick said. "We're wasting time."

Loghain nodded. "Very well, then. Let us be off."

They proceeded back to the woods, and tracked their way to the area they'd avoided on their way through. Loghain saw his first kobold before his first kobold saw him, a short, stringy-looking creature with an overlarge head and greenish-gray skin that looked tough and leathery. The creature's goblin face reminded him of a darkspawn, though it wasn't quite as ugly. He nocked an arrow.

"Aarrgh!" the creature cried as it spotted him. It raised a comparatively heavy sword and charged in his direction. Loghain aimed and loosed, and the kobold fell with an arrow through the forehead. Loghain checked for reinforcements, saw none, and walked over to the fallen creature. He took its sword. To the kobold the blade was nearly comparable to a greatsword, but in Loghain's hand it sat like a shortsword, barely longer than a long dagger. He gave the blade an experimental twirl to test the balance. It wasn't a great example of the weaponsmith's craft, but it would do. If he had to wade through a large number of enemies he needed a sword, though as he imagined fighting creatures that barely reached his knees it was not the blade of choice.

"Is it typical to find a kobold alone?" he asked.

"Fairly. They're not very sociable even amongst their own kind. I don't think we'll be that lucky going forward, however," Chick said.

"Stay alert. We'll take them by surprise if we can."

The main body of the kobold horde was encamped by the bank of a stream not quite a mile further in. There were perhaps half a hundred of the creatures, in various states of repose, some gnawing on bones, others sharpening weapons. They didn't seem particularly alert about woodcraft, and when the arrows of the trio began to rain down among them they started up and rushed about aimlessly for a few moments before they managed to marshal some defenses. Low on arrows, Loghain switched to his looted blade and leaped in among them even while Chick and Elilia continued to shoot.

It was difficult to fight short creatures with a short blade. He ducked and swung, ducked and swung, ducked and swung, over and over again until they stopped advancing on him. Chick ran out of arrows and turned to kick his hard hooves at kobold heads. Elilia dropped her bow and ran forward with her skinning knife in hand. Together they tore through the encampment until the surviving kobolds were forced to flee.

Loghain had several cuts on his legs, and so did Chick, some of them deep. Elilia put up her knife and dropped to her knees. She laid hands on Loghain's legs and blue light emanated from her fingers as she cast healing magic on him.

"I didn't know you could do that," he said.

"I know a little magic," she said. "Beyond some basic healing and a couple of elemental spells, I'm not much shakes with it."

"Well, you're better at it than I am," he said. "I can't use magic at all."

She seemed surprised. "Not at all? That's…weird."

"Not where I come from. The exception to the rule is the ability to use magic."

She moved on to tend Chick's wounds. "Well, it seems like your home would be a hard one to live in. How do you survive without magical healing?"

"A lot of times, we don't."

He began to pick through the refuse in the camp, looking for signs of the missing men and child. He found boot soles, too tough to eat, and human bones, but nothing to identify who they might have been. Some of the bones, heavily gnawed, were the bones of a child.

"Well, I knew we were going to be too late," he said. "I had hoped we'd find something to return to the mother, though."

"Kobolds picked 'em clean," Elilia said. "We gave them some justice, or vengeance at the least. Check for loot. Kobolds like to steal things."

"Are you suggesting we profit from human grief?" Loghain said.

"Hey, we need coin. These kobolds have been traveling from place to place, stealing wherever they go, and there's no returning the stuff they've stolen because there's no way to tell where it comes from. Should we just leave it sitting?"

"Hmph. You have a point."

"I still find it an unsavory way to turn a profit," Chick said.

"Perhaps it is, but we do need equipment. We'll pack out what we can carry and see if any of it belongs to the families of the slain," Loghain said.

That seemed to mollify Chick, and he helped them dig through the scattered refuse for discarded treasures. The kobolds didn't seem to place any great value on the things they stole, and left jewelry and weapons piled under mounds of garbage. Either that or it was a potent anti-theft device. As he pawed through the garbage Loghain felt little inclination to dig very deep. Elilia, on the other hand, burrowed through the offensive trash to bring up anything made of metal. She found rings and amulets, daggers and knives, and even a handful of roofing nails. It was all worth something, if nobody laid claim to it.

They finished up their inspection of the kobold camp and returned the way they'd come with their packs weighted down with loot. Elilia moved to take the lead as though it were her due, and Loghain was happy enough to let her. Now that he knew her true age, he didn't feel too badly about enjoying the view. Whatever her faults, she had a nice figure. He'd always liked a strong woman.

She didn't seem to sense him ogling her backside, which was just as well. They found their way back to the farmhouse and he sobered up well before they came to the door stoop. Elilia stood aside and left his way clear to the door.

He knocked. The harried farmwoman answered it. She looked up at him with fearful, hopeful eyes.

"Milady, I'm sorry," he said. "We killed the kobolds but did not find your husband. We have some items we found. Perhaps something belongs to you, or to your husband. Would you like to look them over?"

She swiped at her now streaming eyes. "Yes, thank you. Come in."

Chick abstained. Loghain and Elilia went in and laid out their findings on the kitchen table. The woman wasn't interested in picking through them, but her eyes alighted on a plain golden band large enough for a man's finger.

"That was my husband's wedding ring," she said. "He wore it on a chain around his neck. He would never take it off."

Loghain picked something out of the detritus and held it up. "This was probably the chain, yes?" he said. The silver links were broken halfway down the chain from the still-intact and still closed clasp. "I'm sorry, milady. We found some remains, but nothing to identify anyone."

The woman folded the ring up in both of her hands and held it to her lips. Her eyes still streamed silent tears. "Thank you for bringing this to me," she said. "At least now I know what happened."

"What will you do?" Elilia asked.

"I really don't know," the woman said.

"Well, we should not intrude upon your grief," Loghain said. "We wish to bring this courtesy to the household of the others missing. Is that farm up the road, on the way to the village?"

"Yes, where the road branches, follow it to the west and you'll come to it," the woman said. "Poor Alyssa…her husband and her sons…"

Loghain clasped the woman's shoulder before they left. He offered no empty words. He had no wisdom to bestow. He was not the type of man who knew the right thing to say in such a situation, so silence was best. They left the woman to her grief and her children, and went to the next farmhouse, where the grieving woman took back her husband's skinning knife and her son's bow.

"You killed those bastard kobolds?" she asked, as she wept over the bow.

"Yes," Loghain said.

"Good. Good."

They left her, and traveled on to the village in silence. They found a merchant and sold the better of their spoils, and sold the remainder to the local blacksmith for scrap. Loghain kept one knife that had a good weight in his hand. They split the profits between them, and Loghain debated buying a razor before deciding he'd be better served to save his coin against a proper longsword first. His face would just have to stay itchy awhile longer yet. Maybe he'd even get used to it.

"What do we do now?" Chick asked, after he made an interested examination of the metal coins they were given in exchange for their goods. Neither the bariaur nor the elf had ever seen coinage before, and Loghain was unfamiliar with the local denominations, so there was no telling whether they'd been cheated or not. Probably they would've done better if they'd gone to a larger settlement, but it was too much to hang on to. As Loghain had suspected, the village amounted to not much more than a tavern and what he thought of as a chantry, but also as he had suspected both places had job board postings.

"I think we should put our hands to some of these jobs they've got posted," he said. "We need more coin if we're going to equip ourselves for a long travel."

"Here's a bounty posting on the kobolds we killed," Elilia said. "It says to see the tavern master for the reward."

She and Loghain entered the tavern, and after some discussion the tavern master handed over a small sack of gold coins. Loghain asked him if he'd ever heard of such a thing as a plantir, a magical device for looking across planes, and the man said he hadn't, but that one would likely find such a thing at the college of magic in North Ebbridge, some six hundred miles north.

"Thank you, Ser," Loghain said, and they went back outside again.

They took on several job postings; loaded wood for a lumberman who wanted to send his goods to another village, fixed a leak in the roof of the chantry (Loghain and Elilia did, at any rate; Chick helped them climb up and down), and hunted in the woods for a particular herb that the priest wanted for the village's medicinal supplies. By that time they were quite hungry, and they stopped in at the tavern to eat. Chick didn't want to go inside. He didn't fit through the door with any ease and it was the sort of place where meat was a matter of course in any dish, but they talked him into coming inside with them.

Loghain ordered a dish of beef stew, and Elilia had a chicken sandwich with a baked potato. Chick sat on the floor by their table and ate the vegetables out of his own bowl of beef stew. He gave Loghain his meat. Oddly, he seemed to enjoy the broth, perhaps because he wasn't aware it was made from meat.

"Hey, who let that goat in here?" someone said.

"Oh dear," Chick said, and seemed to shrink slightly. Loghain turned around and cast a cold eye over the men sitting where the words had come from.

"_I _let him in," he said. "Care to make something of it?"

A couple of the men sized him up. One of them, who had a spark of intelligence in his eyes, shook his head and turned back to his drink. The other, not as smart or perhaps too drunk to think straight, stood up. Loghain put down his spoon, wiped his mouth, and stood up himself.

"Let's take this outside," he said.

"This really isn't necessary," Chick tried to say.

"It's always necessary," Loghain said, "sooner or later."

A line of spectators circled around as Loghain and the drunkard squared off. Loghain let the man have the first strike, a hard right hook that bloodied his nose. Loghain reached up, wiped at the blood, looked at it, and then looked back at the man and grinned in a particularly unpleasant manner. There was blood in his teeth.

The man didn't get a second hit. Loghain socked him in the face with his right, followed it up with his left, then hit him with his right again, and down he went. Loghain looked around at the men in the circle.

"Anybody else have a problem with my friend?" he asked. Nobody seemed to. The crowd dispersed, and he went back inside to finish his meal.

"That was barbaric," Elilia said. Loghain laughed.

"I happen to be a barbarian," he said.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Dragon Age_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T

**Spoilers: **Takes place immediately after the events of _Dragon Age: Origins._

* * *

**Chapter Four: Odd Jobbing**

They spent the night in the lee of what Loghain continued to think of as the chantry. That wasn't what the natives called it, of course, they had a funny word for it. Kirk. Funny because as far as he was aware back home kirk meant black, as in Kirkwall, the black wall. Given the amount of willful ignorance typical of the priests and petitioners of anything resembling a chantry, however, "black" was an apt description. As in black hole. Even as he had this thought a little twinge of conscience reminded him of Mother Ailis, and he amended to himself that there were occasional sparks of light in that darkness.

It wasn't a comfortable night, unlike the night at the barn, but the price was right. The intent was to stay in town and work until they had enough coin to outfit themselves for a long walk, at least enough to make it to the next village, which was fifty miles away, north up the nearby river at a place where a tributary fed into it, a crossroads of water traffic. If he were alone, Loghain would have considered working his way up the river on one of the small boats that plied trade from one town to the next, but the boats weren't big enough to justify three hired hands, even if they were big enough for Chick to turn around on, which they weren't. It was no great hardship, like any good Ferelden he was somewhat suspicious of boats.

Loghain lay awake a long time that night. The beef stew, even with extra meat, hadn't gone far to assuage his hunger. Nothing really did, these days. He realized that even though he'd felt not the trace of a tingle of the taint in his veins since coming here, he still had a Warden's appetite. He supposed that meant he was still tainted, but it was strange that he felt nothing. Perhaps it was just the place, darkspawnless.

A sudden thought occurred to him as he lay there. Perhaps it was the place coupled with that drink he'd taken in the old mage's tower at Soldier's Keep. His fellow Warden had insisted he share that dusty bottle of potion they found, even though neither of them had any idea what it was supposed to do, and like a good soldier he'd done as he was ordered. That potion had changed the taint inside of him, something he'd scarcely noticed once the initial pain of it passed. It had given him strange and terrible new powers, something akin to blood magic, but it had also done…something…to the taint in him. He hadn't noticed then if it had made him less aware of the corruption in his blood, but that was a Blight, and there were darkspawn everywhere you looked - except, oddly enough, Soldier's Peak. Whatever else that potion had done to him, it had made him stronger. That old Warden mage, Avernus, had undoubtedly used some of that potion on himself, and somehow he managed to stave off his Calling - and death in general - for two hundred years. He didn't look like he had much longer, but by the Maker! Two hundred years!

He didn't kid himself into thinking that potion would keep him alive that long, but perhaps it would stave off the madness of the Calling so he could die naturally. That would be something. Of course, if he had his druthers he'd die in battle, as he was meant to. Still, it would be something to know there was no chance of his becoming a ghoul. There were no darkspawn and presumably no Old Gods to seek out, and that, too, could be a reason why he felt no strangeness in his blood. There was nothing to sing out to him, here. Except, perhaps, Urthemiel, and if he understood anything about that possibility then he thought it unlikely that the dragon was still corrupted. Maybe that didn't make a difference to the way the song of the dragon would affect his mind once he'd lost most of it, but on the whole he thought maybe it would.

It was a lot to think about, and the combination of a full head and an unsatisfied stomach made him restless. That wasn't all. Since becoming a Warden, one other appetite had reawakened with a particular vengeance, and it bothered him especially at night. This appetite came tonight complete with a mental image: a round bottom that swayed seductively and completely unconsciously from side to side. He groaned and turned over to lay on his stomach, heedless of the painful pinch it gave him. How Elilia would _love_ to know she provided jerk off fodder. He was too old for this ridiculousness. He'd put that part of his life behind him years ago, and now it was back to torture him with desires he couldn't fulfill. He lay facedown with his head on his folded arms and forced himself to relive old battles, to review his strategies for strengths and weaknesses. When that didn't work he forced himself to relive Ostagar. _That_ was a boner-killer if ever there was one.

Once he reasserted some degree of control he was able to sleep. He awoke cold in the early morning. He wondered whether it was a last breath of winter or a first breath of autumn. It was Drakonis back home, nearly Cloudreach. He hadn't a clue what month it might be here, or if the seasons matched up. He was hit with another pang of homesickness. He shoved the feeling aside resolutely.

Chick woke up and shivered. "Well, nippy this morning, isn't it?" he said.

"You're a little underdressed, on the half of you that has no fur," Loghain said. "You should think about remedying that."

"It's been so warm lately I guess I was lulled into thinking it would stay that way. I should have brought a cloak, at least."

"Could I ask why you left home so unprepared? You didn't even bring a backpack," Loghain said.

"It was a matter of 'leave now or never leave,'" Chick said. "I knew I would lose my nerve if I waited. It isn't often a bariaur leaves his flock. It was very hard to do."

Elilia woke up and drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "Yikes, who turned off the sunshine?" she asked, as she peered up into the gloomy sky.

"There's a breath of winter in the air this morning," Loghain said. "My question; are we coming out of it or going into it?"

"Coming out of it," Chick said. "It's springtime."

"Ah, then the seasons do match up, at least approximately. That's good to know. What month is it?"

"March," Elilia said.

"Is that a command, or is that the name of the month?" Loghain asked.

"That's the name of the month. March, Graycloud, Bloomingtide, Junar, Sun, August, Sere, Harvest, Firstfall, Whiteveil, Wintermarch, and Vestus."

"Some of them are the same, and others are close. Strange, that. Of course, everything is strange in a situation like this. Perhaps such similarities are common, I wouldn't know," Loghain said.

"We are taught that the Maker made all of us, in every dimension," Elilia said. "I would think similarities would be the rule rather than the exception, if that's true."

"Does the Maker have anything to do with this plane?" Loghain asked.

"You mean, is He still here? They say not," Chick said.

"A serial deadbeat father," Loghain said. "That sounds about right. He makes something new, gets bored with it, and runs off to play with other toys."

"Calling back the Maker is a major preoccupation of many peoples on many planes," Chick said.

"My own people think He can be called back with worldwide praise and piety," Loghain said. "Personally I wonder if He's really anything we need back. They say we turned our backs on Him first, but it looks to me more the other way 'round. The first gods people in Thedas worshiped were not the Maker. No one knew who He was until a woman named Andraste claimed to speak for Him."

"I don't know whether it would be best to have the Maker back or not," Chick said, "but somehow I think all attempts to call out to him are falling on deaf ears. He's the Creator, he makes things, but He doesn't take responsibility for them. He leaves that to other gods."

"What gods do your people worship?" Loghain asked him.

"Bariaurs revere Ehlonna, a deity of the woodlands. Sylvan elves also revere Ehlonna, if I'm not mistaken."

"We do," Elilia said, "but we revere other gods as well, all woodland deities."

"Do your gods take much interest in mortal affairs?"

"It varies. Some gods interfere in mortal affairs often, others only provide guidance at a distance. It seems to be a general rule that the interfering gods are the ones that don't have good intentions towards the races of the earth," Chick said.

Elilia pulled a piece of elven bread from her knapsack and bit into it, leaf and all. Loghain ate his own piece. It was the last piece he had. He wouldn't miss it, it did nothing to quiet his raging appetite, but it was food, and without it things could get very grim very quickly. They needed coin so they could lay in provisions, and not have to rely on their luck at hunting. He wondered if there was enough work in this tiny village for them.

They finished up their unsatisfactory breakfast and went to find out. There were still some notices listed on the boards; a farmer who wanted help digging a new well on his property, a bounty for fox pelts, and a farmer's daughter giving away kittens. Elilia opted for fox hunting. Loghain and Chick decided to turn their hands to well digging. It took them all day, with Loghain at the bottom of the hole and Chick at the top to haul up the buckets of dirt. The farmer fed them in addition to their pay, so it was a good deal. Tired and dirty, they returned to the village at sunset, and found Elilia waiting for them outside the tavern with the bounties from three foxes in hand.

"If we pool our coin, we should have enough to provision ourselves as far as to the next village," Elilia said. "Of course, you need boots and you and Chick both should have a cloak, so maybe we want to give it a little bit longer. I hate to overhunt, but we could all go out looking for foxes tomorrow."

"Just because there are no more jobs listed doesn't mean there isn't work in the area," Loghain said. "We could ask around at the outlying farms for work. There's hopefully no need to wipe out the local fox population, though anyone raising chickens might disagree."

"You need a bath, barbarian," she said, with a grin. "You look like you've been down at the bottom of a hole all day."

"I have been," he said, without humor. "A bath would be more than welcome, but it will have to wait. I don't think this village has such an amenity as a public bath, and the river's a bit wild for bathing."

"Hey, you're the barbarian?" A man stepped out of the shadows at the side of the tavern. "I overheard you last night inside. Didn't step outside to see the fight, but I heard a lot about it. Would you be interested in making some good coin?"

Loghain folded his arms across his chest. "I'd have to hear what you're proposing, first," he said.

"It's nothing illegal. I run an entertainment, just outside of town in my barn. The best local fighters compete bare-knuckles. There's good coin for winning, and even if you lose, you get a few coins for your effort."

"So that's what the local husbands do for fun, eh?" Loghain said. "Beat each other senseless and lose all the family's coin in betting."

"You're against gambling?" the man asked.

"I'm against children going hungry because Daddy squandered all his earnings chasing ponies."

"Well this isn't like that," the man said. "There's limits on how much the men can wager. It's all just good fun."

"Good fun. Right."

"We could use the coin," Elilia said. Loghain turned to look at her.

"Didn't you berate me for barbarism just last night?" he demanded.

"Yes, but you were quite proud to lay claim to it. What's the difference, except this time you'd get paid?"

"Now listen, lassie," he started, but she broke in.

"Lassie? You called those farmwomen 'milady.' What gives?"

"You're no lady, you're a malignant harpy," he said, without rancor. "So, you'd like to see me get my face rearranged for coin, would you?"

"Well, you couldn't come out any worse than you are now. What is there to lose?"

"When you put it that way, I suppose nothing," he said. "All right, I'll take one for the team."

"Great. I'll give you directions to my place. Come when the moon is high. Free ale for fighters," the man said.

"Wonderful. I'll be getting the stuffing beat out of me but I'll be feeling no pain."

The man walked away, and Elilia smacked Loghain on the arm. "This could be good for us. You obviously know how to fight; teach these yokels a few new tricks and give 'em a show and we'll take their coin."

"That 'come when the moon is high' stipulation makes me somewhat nervous," Chick said. "Quite apart from being utterly barbaric, something tells me the man wasn't being quite truthful when he said this wasn't illegal."

"Fights aren't illegal in Ferelden, nor gambling on them, but they're still underground, more or less," Loghain said. "Even when they aren't illicit, such things are by nature shady. We do this, we should watch our backs. Carefully."

"That's comforting," Chick said. "What do we do in the meantime? The moon won't be high for hours."

"I'm tempted to take a room here at the tavern so I could use the bathing facilities," Loghain said. "Elilia could sleep there tonight, all I need is a bath."

"Who needs sleep?" Elilia said. "I'm going to be watching the fight."

"Are you certain you're not at least a little bit of a barbarian yourself?" Loghain asked.

"No, I'm a malignant harpy, remember? I love seeing blood on the ground."

Loghain went into the tavern and purchased a room for the night, which gave him access to the tavern's limited bathing facilities. A wooden tub, cold water, and a hard lump of rock soap. As he cleaned himself he gave himself another inspection. The bruises had faded considerably, to that ugly yellow-brown. After tonight, some of them at least would be back in force. There was probably already a good one on his face from the night before. He didn't care to look in a mirror to find out.

Elilia capped out on the bed in the room for a couple of hours sleep. Loghain and Chick made do at the back of the tavern under the stars, despite the chill. Chick might have slept, but Loghain didn't. When the time was right they met in front of the tavern and traveled on to the place the man had told them about.

People had already gathered in the barn when they got there. There was nothing in the barn, no stalls or animals or farm equipment, just a ring of sandbags to mark out the "arena" and a few bales of hay for makeshift seats, and a small bar behind which a stern-faced woman held court, and filled mugs with frothy ale for a few coins a drink. By the number of people gathered and the amount they drank, it was a lucrative business. He wondered if the tavern resented the competition, then realized that the ale probably came from there. They were getting a kickback.

The crowd was surprisingly mixed, though there were more men than women. Some of the women might even have been wives of some of the men. Others, maybe not. Loghain doubted they were prostitutes, the village wasn't big enough to support much of a sex industry, but they were the type of women you'd expect to see at a fight and no question about it. The few wives gave them dark looks over their husbands' shoulders.

The man who ran this affair walked up to Loghain. "You're here, good. We haven't had any new fighters in awhile, the boys will be eager to test you. You got a name, or do I just call you 'the barbarian?'"

"I have a name, but not one I care to use in this context. Call me what you will," Loghain said.

"Just as well. The boys will be more eager to fight someone styling themselves as a barbarian. Get ready to go, because I'm going to open the floor with a challenge match."

The man walked to the center of the ring and raised his hands over his head. "Your attention, please," he called out. "Tonight we have a special treat: a new fighter to test your mettle. He fought with young master Barclay last night and took his best punch. He came up _grinning_. He's proud to call himself a barbarian. Who will be the first to challenge him?"

Loghain stepped forward when the man gestured him to, and stood with his arms folded by the side of the ring. A young man with a cocksure angle to his head stepped forward.

"You're big, barbarian, and I don't doubt you were something, once upon a time, but your day has come and gone," he said. "I'll fight you."

Loghain nodded and stepped into the ring. The young man stepped in on the other side. They faced off as the crowd gathered round expectantly. The fight promoter gave the rules: No hitting below the belt, falling outside the ring counts as a knockout, a knockdown is as good as a knockout.

Loghain allowed the young man to make the first move, as he'd done the night before, but this time he didn't let him connect. He caught the blow on his forearm and knocked the young man's fist away, as casually as swatting a fly. He didn't attack, simply allowed the young man to tire himself throwing punches he easily avoided by dodging or knocking down. He would teach this young buck that an old dog still knows a few good tricks.

The young man grew frustrated, as well as exhausted, and began to throw wild punches that were laughably easy to duck. Off balance from one such off-target haymaker, the young man suddenly found himself facing the wrong direction as Loghain spun him by the shoulder and frogmarched him to the edge of the ring. One hard shove and the young man was out. A knockout, if only technical. The young man never laid a knuckle on him, and he himself finished the fight without bruising his own. A good win, he thought, though maybe not what the brutes watching him wanted. They found it amusing, nonetheless, and roared laughter at the young man who was no longer so cocky.

The fight promoter returned to the ring and raised Loghain's hand up in the air. "A good win, a good win," he said. "Who will challenge him now?"

And so it went. The other fighters didn't come with loud talk, they'd learned, and Loghain didn't try to humiliate any of them, but the fights were mostly humiliating anyway. Only two fighters managed to land a square punch on him, more by luck than by skill, and no one managed to knock him down. Eventually the flow of competitors dried up, and he faced off against the local champion as the highlight of the evening. Elilia cheered him on from the sidelines, while Chick looked on with his face creased in worry as a man stepped into the ring not quite so tall but every bit as broad as Loghain, if not broader. Loghain appraised the man. This was not an untrained brawler like the others, he carried himself with the bearing of a soldier.

"You were in an army once, weren't you?" he asked. The man nodded.

"So were you," he said, in a gruff and strongly accented voice. "I was a Sergeant."

"I was a General," Loghain said, as a statement of fact and not of conceit.

The bullish man barked a harsh laugh. "I'll salute you if you beat me," he said.

"Fair enough."

They squared off. Neither was anxious to make the first move. Loghain had no idea what caliber of fighter the man was, while the man had had all night to gauge his abilities. His knuckles were already broken and bloody from all the fighting he'd done, while the other man was relatively fresh, barring the old bruises of other fights on other nights. Loghain knew this wouldn't be a cakewalk like the others.

Someone had to make a move, because the spectators were restless. That fact didn't perturb Loghain, but the local champion felt the weight of eyes upon him. He broke from his guarded stance and lashed an explosive straight right at Loghain that he dodged - barely. The left that followed immediately after, however, was harder to duck, and he took it on the cheek. He felt it swell almost immediately. He blocked the following right and lashed out with his own right fist. The champion was a good hitter but he wasn't fast on his feet, and the punch connected solidly. The big man was rocked, and Loghain exploited the advantage with another straight right, a left, and another right. The champion got his hand up in time to block the final blow. They traded blows for several minutes, with neither able to gain a clear advantage over the other. Loghain's knuckles split open wider, and blood streamed over his fingers.

"Getting tired, General?" the champion asked, and threw a particularly hard punch.

"Not yet," Loghain said, as he ducked it and threw his own. Again the champion's poor defenses gave him an opening to exploit. He delivered his best blows in rapid succession, and not all the blood that flew from each strike was his. The champion was rocked, stepped backward, back again, and then again, and then…he stumbled out of the ring. A knockout.

There were loud cheers from those who put their money on Loghain, and angry groans from those whose money was on the local hero. The champion knuckled blood and snot from his nose, looked at Loghain through eyes that were in the process of swelling shut, and snapped off a smart salute. Loghain returned it with one of his own.

"I still don't believe you were any General," the former champion said. "No General fights that good."

"My father taught me to fight," Loghain said. "He was a Sergeant."

The big man grinned. "Now it makes sense."

He stepped forward with his hand out. Loghain shook with him. Elilia came up behind him and pounded on his shoulders. "You won! You won! You won!"

"Yes, I won, now quit beating me, I've had quite enough of that for tonight," he said.

"Can we get out of here?" Chick asked. "I find all of this intensely disturbing."

"Yes, let's see if we can't squeeze a couple hours of sleep into this night. I just have to see the man about my winnings, I suppose. Wonder how tough it will be to actually get them out of him?"

Not very, as it turned out. The man handed a sack of coins to Loghain even as he turned around. "There you go, one hundred and fifty dollars for taking down the champ, plus fifty dollars for taking down the other contenders. Two hundred dollars ain't chump change, eh? Not bad for one night's work."

Loghain had no idea whether two hundred dollars was a lot or a little, and he was slightly too proud to ask. He'd find out eventually, for now he just took his coin with thanks. Chick was quite happy to leave the barn bloodfest behind them, and Elilia was so happy she bounced when she walked. They returned to the tavern, and Elilia disappeared inside to her room, while the men once again made do at the back outside. There wasn't much left of the night but they got what they could out of it. Loghain found it a more comfortable experience than the night before. There was nothing like a good beating to take your mind off of sex.

In the morning they met in the tavern for breakfast, though Chick didn't order anything. Instead he begged some gauze bandages from the tavernmaster and wrapped Loghain's split knuckles.

"You don't have to fuss over me," Loghain said. "I'm just fine."

"Yeah, yeah," Chick said. "The fact is, these wounds could get infected. Then where would you be? We should put some honey on them."

"Are you going to heal me or eat me?" Loghain demanded. Chick glared at him.

"_Honey _keeps infection at bay," he said.

"And it's very tasty," Elilia said. "It's a win-win."

"There are things that keep infection at bay that are less messy than honey," Loghain said. "One minor health poultice would take care of it."

"And it works because it's made with honey!" Chick said.

"Maybe so, but it's not _messy," _Loghain said.

"Well, we need to stock up on curatives anyway. Fortunately we now have the coin to do it," Elilia said. She reached down and brought up a large bag she plunked on the table next to her eggs and toast. "Here's our winnings from last night."

Loghain looked at the bag and then shook his head. "I've got my winnings in my knapsack," he said.

"You've got the stuff you won for _fighting_. I've got the stuff you won us for actually _winning."_

He glared at her. "Do you mean to tell me you gambled our coin?"

"What? You won, didn't you?" she said.

"That was by no means assured," he said.

"Oh pooh. The only thing I was worried about was the bookie not honoring my bets because I'm an elf. I think having Chick with me, and the imminent threat of a ramming, helped me get our coin."

"I never threatened any such thing," Chick said, indignantly.

"You were there, and presence implies intent," Elilia said. "Whatever, we got our coin. I managed to turn our little handful into almost two hundred dollars. I'm not sure, but I think that's a lot. I bet we can outfit ourselves pretty well now."

"Combined with my purse, I should think so," Loghain said. "All right, I forgive you, but don't make a habit of it. The odds are always with the house."

They finished up their breakfasts and sat talking for awhile, and just as they were getting up to leave the local champion walked through the door. He waved and came over to them. His face was a mask of swelling and bruises, but he seemed to harbor no resentment for it.

"Good morning, General. Can I buy you a drink?" he asked.

"It's earlier than I usually care to drink, but my father taught me you don't turn down such an offer unless you're looking to piss a man off," Loghain said.

"A wise man, your father," the champion said.

"Wiser than me, that's for certain," Loghain said. They all sat back down again and the champion called for a round of ale. Loghain introduced Chick and Elilia.

"And what's your name?" the champion asked. "I'm reasonably certain it's neither General nor Barbarian."

"Loghain Mac Tir," he said.

"I'm John Okeer," the champion said. He took his mug and tipped it back, and swallowed its contents in one long gulp. "I expect your name is known, where you hail from? People drink toasts to the memory of battles you've won?"

"They used to," Loghain said.

"How did you end up drifting around out here in the boonies?"

"Long, and fairly unbelievable story," he said. "How did you end up out here, Sergeant? You're no local."

"That's a long story, too, and not an uncommon one. I needed a fresh start in a new place where nobody knew me. I'm not running from anything bad, mind you, just…empty. I like it out here. The air is fresh and the people mostly mind their own business."

"I grew up in a place not too different," Loghain said. "Well, I say I grew up there, but really I was still a child when that ended. I hope the specter of war doesn't loom over this land."

"Doesn't it always? Things are mostly quiet these days but peace never lasts forever, does it?" Okeer said. "Us little people never know when the Powers that Be will decide there needs to be blood."

"I don't miss being one of them," Loghain said. "As it stands now, I make a mistake and it maybe costs me my life. Before, I made a mistake that cost hundreds of lives."

"Are you running from it?" Okeer asked.

"Not on purpose," Loghain said. "In fact, I'm running back to it, if possible. You see, I killed a creature that was worshipped as a god, and apparently it had godly powers. When it died, its soul came here, and somehow it dragged me along with it, probably by accident. I'm from another plane. I have to find a way back to my homeland, if there is one. I'm happy enough to lay the burden aside for a short while, but I'll know no peace until I find a way to atone."

"You really were a General?" Okeer said.

"I really was. It gets worse. I was a Lord, too."

Okeer burst out laughing. "So I'm tossing one back with a General _and _a Lord? And god-touched, to boot! If my Pap could see me now."

He ordered another drink. "So what's your plan for getting back home?" he asked.

Loghain shook his head. "I don't really have one, as such. I'm going to North Ebbridge to see if someone there at the college of magic can use a device called a plantir to check on things back home for me, and hopefully someone there might have some ideas about traveling across planes, too. If worse comes to worst I'll track down the Archdemon in whatever form it has taken in this world and try to get it to send me back, but I don't know how to look for the damned thing."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck. Seems to me you're going to need it. And now I should be going. I haven't slept yet, and I'm going to need a little recovery time before I start pounding some respect back into the local toughs," Okeer said, and gulped down his ale.

"Could I ask you something?" Loghain said. "Instead of just beating them senseless, why don't you teach them to fight? With blades, like soldiers, instead of with their fists like thugs. It seems to me these men need some skills to protect their families, instead of playing around like children. We found what little was left of three of them when we killed off the kobold gang. If they'd had a bit of training, they might have been all right."

"It's an idea," Okeer said. "Don't know that any of 'em would want to learn from me. Teaching them to fight wouldn't be good for my 'career,' but you're right about them needing a few skills."

He left the tavern, and Loghain and the others followed him out. They headed to what amounted to the local mercantile store, an extremely cramped wooden box with a sales floor of roughly three and a half feet square. Most of the small building was given over to storage space behind the counter, with items tightly packed onto ceiling-high shelves. Chick could not fit inside the store, and had to stand in the doorway with just his head and human torso through the entryway. Passersby in the street outside were treated to the sight of a large white goat ass sticking out of their dry goods store.

They purchased smoked and dried meat, pickles, and cheeses. They purchased oilcloth for tents and wooden pegs to tie them down with. They purchased larger backpacks and woolen blankets, yards of woolen fabric to make cloaks for Loghain and Chick, a small shovel so they could dig a proper camp latrine and a small bag of quicklime to keep the smell down. Their coin went far, and though there were no boots to hand of a size that would fit Loghain, he was able to buy a silver razor and a small folding shaving mirror. There was plenty of coin left over when they were done, and the clerk assured them there was a cobbler in the next village who could accommodate Loghain's lack of footwear. Fifty miles barefoot wasn't ideal, but he could handle it. Elilia and Chick retreated to the outside, and Loghain made one more surreptitious purchase: a hoof pick. Chick didn't wear shoes, but he could still pick up a stone in the sole of his foot or the cleft of his hoof, and even though he had fingers and was very flexible it couldn't be easy to remove them. He didn't have to broadcast his possession of the pick, just have it handy on the off chance. Like the Ferelden Child Scouts, Loghain's motto was "be prepared."


End file.
